Last week, the Trafalgar Theatres Marketing Forum was held at the Old Town Hall in Wycombe. Teams from across all of our UK venues including Glasgow, Cardiff, Crewe, Wycombe, Swindon, Fareham, Guildford, Hayes, Bromley, Dartford, and Southend came together to look at venue priorities and strategic planning for the next year and beyond. 

The Theatre and Venue Directors each gave a 10 minute overview based on their venue business plans and highlighted key areas of focus for the marketing teams. We heard from our team in Southend about the refurb work that has just begun, as they reiterated the message ‘We’re still open for business’.

We listened to some interesting thoughts on sustainability from the team at The Beck and heard some sobering stats on the competition in Cardiff and Glasgow. Lots of conversations about encouraging first time bookers to become repeat bookers and thoughts around venue specific destination campaigns outside of the shows.

In the afternoon the teams broke out into smaller groups to devise tactical initiatives to execute the objectives presented. It was wonderful to hear so many great ideas being generated. These included ‘Tea with the TD’ offering up our Theatre Directors to local influencers, loyal bookers or press contacts to sit down and chat more about the venue. ‘Story of my Seat’ where customers could view more information about the history of some of our older venues, and ‘solo outing’ initiatives in Guildford for our single ticket bookers.

It was a really focussed day and was the perfect opportunity to re-connect with marketing colleagues and improve our cross departmental communications.

Thanks to the fantastic team at Wycombe for a lovely breakfast and lunch, the morning pastries were particularly delicious! Special thanks to Fiona and team for hosting a very successful 2024 Marketing Forum.

And it was also a chance for us all to sing Happy Birthday to Lorna Strawson, our TD in Bromley, who spent her birthday at the Forum!