"Theatre is a really popular industry to work in so the more you can do to demonstrate your interest the better"

Hometown
I’m originally from Dorchester (Dorset) and after four years of university have now returned to my hometown to live

What do you do?
Marketing officer for Lighthouse, Poole’s centre for the arts

What was your very first role in theatre?
This is my first paid one

What else have you done in theatre?
Volunteer host at Lighthouse and a volunteer on Dorchester Arts Festival

Have you got qualifications?
4 A-levels, a degree in English literature and cultural criticism and a postgraduate diploma in arts management from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

What did you do before you worked in theatre?
Prior to starting my arts management course, I worked for a year and a half as a sales consultant in a commercial gallery in Dorchester. The work was varied and included a lot of marketing and press tasks as well as general sales and consultations.

How did you make the move to working in theatre?
My postgraduate course was run by professionals working in the arts industry and it taught me everything I needed to know to make the move to working in theatre

What did you want to be when you grew up?
A ballerina initially and then a pianist on a cruise ship. Later I decided I’d rather do something creative that didn’t involve constant stage fright! During my teens I really enjoyed creative writing so journalism and advertising were top of my list.

What do you do all day?
My current job involves a huge variety of tasks from writing brochure copy and designing flyers to distributing print and stuffing envelopes! Marketing isn’t always glamorous, but there’s never a dull moment and always plenty more you can be doing.

I rarely have a typical day; every time the phone rings my work schedule changes. Generally I start my week by sending sales figures for all my shows to the touring companies with updates on marketing activity. This often launches a discussion with the company on what we can do—in addition to the original campaign outline—to increase sales. From here I look at the weekly income and analyse where we are in comparison to income targets.

Then it’s on to my main workload, which consists of writing direct mail letters, contacting local arts organisations or businesses to explore new promotional opportunities, and researching shows more thoroughly to uncover interesting selling points. I market half the shows we have at Lighthouse, which is roughly 20 shows in any one season, so there’s always plenty to do. Most weeks there’s at least one direct mail letter to write, and often e-flyers, newsletters and programmes too. Copywriting is probably my favourite part of my job so I do as much of this as possible.

I also look after our MySpace that was set up a few months ago, so I check messages and friend requests on there on a daily basis. I also update the site regularly with new video clips and slideshows to keep it fresh.

Meetings are another regular occurrence with marketing meetings every Monday afternoon to chat through sales figures and campaign progress, and team briefs with our ticket office most Wednesdays to make sure we’re all fully informed on what each other are doing.

Then of course there are always plenty of phone calls and emails that throw additional tasks into the daily plan. This could be a touring company requesting additional marketing activity, other venues requesting a data swap or customers wanting to know extra information about a show.

Generally speaking you can expect to do a bit of copywriting, mailing extractions, plenty of phone calls and emails and a meeting or two in any given week.

What’s the best thing about your job?
I really enjoy copywriting but my favourite think has to be seeing all the shows. There are not many jobs where you can actually go back to work in the evening for pleasure! I’ve seen so many great shows since I started working here that I probably wouldn’t have even considered watching before.

And the worst?
Constantly working to deadlines, frequently with conflicting demands. It can be pretty stressful when you’ve planned your work schedule immaculately to meet mailing and advertising deadlines only to get a phone call from a touring company to say they’re worried about sales and all marketing activity needs to be pulled forward immediately!

What’s your dream job in theatre?
My dream job in theatre is probably not that dissimilar to what I’m doing now. Probably given the choice I would like to specialise in copywriting and do that full time, but the variety you get in marketing is pretty great.

I’d also love to work abroad for a while: a year marketing Sydney Opera House would be fantastic!

Got any wise words for someone who wants to be where you are now?
There are plenty of ways to become a marketing officer. A lot of people start by working in ticket sales and move into marketing from there. Others start as a marketing assistant and work their way up.

I was keen to learn about the industry as a whole before I actually started working in theatre so I took a course that covered all aspects of arts management from marketing to finance and administration and education. I’m really glad I took that path because I think it really helps to understand what your colleagues are doing and how different departments fit together and rely on one another. It also meant I was able to skip up the career ladder slightly quicker and get straight into managing campaigns. I felt confident about what I was doing and was able to just get on with it.

There are advantages to both levels of entry and it depends very much on your personal circumstances and ambitions as to which will work best for you. Whichever way you get into theatre, I think the thing to remember is that it’s a really popular industry to work in so the more you can do to demonstrate your interest in theatre the better. I volunteered at Lighthouse and on local arts festival as much as I possibly could to gain experience and make contacts. Little things like that really help boost your CV and show that you’re serious about working in that industry.

Another important thing is to look at the jobs that are available out there and the kind of qualifications they require. There are plenty of great courses around but they can be expensive and it may be that some experience of working in a ticket office accompanied by short courses in copywriting, basic graphic design and IT might be all you need to secure an interview.

Don’t be afraid to contact your local theatre and ask if there are opportunities for volunteering or work experience. Once you’ve made that first contact you never know what opportunities might arise and it’s a great way to make sure you hear about new jobs early on.