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Street Theatre Attracting and Holding an Audience Adaptable Formats Marches/Protests: Increasing your individual impact
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Attracting and holding an audienceWe're all looking for 'Factor X': what draws a crowd and makes it stop. Street Theatre does not mean performance. It means a visual way of getting your message across. Be brief and repeat. Think about your audience . For a passers-by audience you probably have about 30 seconds to get attention if you are on the flat. To extend this time, you need to attract attention from afar. Be visible... something tall: a bunch of balloons, a flower, a stilt-walker, a big puppet, be on a rise so that people can see you in advance and be intrigued. Give advance warning . The more time people have to get to see what you are doing in advance, the less they will feel threatened and close down, ignore you, go another way to avoid you etc. If they suddenly come upon you without warning, then most people switch off, so have a line of leafletters so they can take maybe not the first but the second or third leaflet offered. Assess where people walk and where they wait, such as road crossings and cash point queues (good for talking to people: a bit of a captive audience). Position yourselves where they will have to pass you. Be inviting and non-threatening. Examples: - A clown to watch next to your stall. - A repetitive, short activity to see (30 seconds max). - A still , simple, silent tableau to look at as they walk by, with a leafletter to engage them after they have passed. - A game to play such as stocks to throw wet sponges at some immediately recognizable person. - An activity that is immediately understood like voting. 'Vote here on Troops out of Iraq: Yes or No?' - A postcard to sign in the shape of a fish about depleting fish stocks. - People dressed up as recognizable symbols... Robin Hood, Scrooge, the Grim Reaper, Father Christmas, Tony Blair in a mask... - Don't hide behind your stall... have one or two people standing in front chatting to those behind it which encourages others but be careful not to mask the message by lots of bodies. Have 'plants', friends who'll be the first to volunteer to participate; people rarely want to be first. 'Factor X' (see above) is often balanced on a knife edge. Something that didn't work in one situation may, with a small 'tweak', be successful in another. Do remember though that "just because it works in your head and makes you all laugh in a planning meeting, doesn't guarantee that it will necessarily work in practice" (a quote from Polyp). Be prepared to 'fail' and to learn from it.
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