Flatlining - Is this the year that Flyering stopped working?

Look at that graph. Isn't that the most miserable thing you ever saw? Probably not, cos it's not your show. But having had to cancel two shows (for family reasons, going to England for 2 days) my sales line temporarily nosedived as people got their money back. And then today's uptick? Well, it simply doesn't compare with previous years.

Could this be the year when flyering stopped working?

When I took my first show to the Edinburgh Fringe, The Sitcom Trials way back in 2001, I discovered how flyering worked. More precisely I discovered that flyering did work.

It was a revelation to me to find the streets were full of punters, all in town in order to see shows, and all you had to do was persuade them that yours was the show they wanted. That year’s show had a breakeven of 30 punters per day, and I found that three hours of flyering would bring in the said thirty bums on seats.

This became known, if only by me, as Kev F’s Theory Of Flyering. 3 hours of flyering equalled 30 bums on seats. As recently as 2015 I tested it out under laboratory conditions (okay, I recorded a couple of days flyering and leaped to some vague conclusions), and it seemed that the theory still held true.

That very first flyer, from 2001. (An overstickered version, cos we had lots left over. That year I also discovered you only need 10,000 flyers, and I'd printed 25,000.)

I also demonstrated how not flyering would lower sales when, in 2002 and 2012, I made the same mistake twice. I did two shows a day. And, since I have always been single-handedly responsible for my own promotion, I was able to do half as much flyering per show and, lo, each show sold half as well as previously.

But this year I’m struggling. Today, for example, I’ve done nearly four hours of flyering and my sales for tonight - on 2 for 1 day, which I’ve sold out almost every year - are stuck on 53 (a sellout being 90). They were 53 before I’d given out a single flyer and they’re fifty bloody three after two bursts of pretty bloody good flyering.

My technique remains the best. Everyone gets The Snap, they get the smile, they get a witty sales line (be it “this is what you’re looking for”, “they’re on at 10.30”, “they’re selling out but you might squeeze in tonight” etc), and they take the flyer. More people take my flyers than take anyone else’s flyers. I see it all day every day, and it’s been a source of pride for the last 18 years.

Except that in all those previous years the proof of the pudding was in the eating, and this year it’s not. The flyers aren’t turning into ticket sales.

Maybe it’s my mood - I am exhausted with the cold, and with having to cancel two shows to go down and see Mum, and the whole Mum situation is obviously very depressing - but I feel like I’ve never before encountered so many resistant punters. The Royal Mile has always been a bit of a waste of time, with such a high proportion of tourists being Tattooies and day-trippers, who don’t even know the Fringe exists and have no intention of going to any show of any sort even if they did. There have always been lots of Tattooies, but their lot was usually leavened by the Fringegoers who would coalesce around the Fringe Office box office queue. That queue is now a distant memory.

The Fringe box office queue on the High Street, as it appeared in the halcyon days of 2010

With the growth of online ticket buying, and the profusion of cross-venue box offices (for example the Underbelly, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance & Assembly all sell each others tickets), there is now no reason for the queue at the Fringe Office to be a focus any more. It used to be the greatest place to flyer. A few years ago, when everyone started flyering the queue (something which had once being the province of a small few of us) the stewards cracked down on it. But you could always spot the likely punters on their way there. Now you can’t.

My flyering strip of choice is the stretch around the Gilded Balloon, where there is a healthy flow of punters. But two factors have made that less effective year on year. One is the profusion of other flyerers - there are more than I have ever seen along that stretch. The other is the resistant punters. I feel like I have been told “no thanks” more than ever. There are more people going past who have already bought their tickets for another show, or aren’t going to any shows anywhere.

I have a feeling that more people have decided what they’re going to see before they get here - as recorded last week, I had near-record high pre-sales before we arrived in Edinburgh - and they’re less susceptible to being whipped into my show by me and my bits of cardboard. Could it be that the battle is won, by all those shows with big agencies whose PRs have got them coverage in the national press months ago, long before August starts? I also have paranoid doubts that people may be looking at the flyer and thinking it’s a kids show (I was warned against having cartoons on the flyer for this very reason, back in the spring). Or am I simply losing the race to other more attractive acts? Sorry, it’s possible to get very maudlin and introspective when you let Edinburgh get to you, and it rather looks like I’ve let it get to me this week. (And my god is there anything more depressing than a Sold Out board that’s packed with act after act, and you’re not on it? I’m making myself more miserable by thinking these things out loud).

I will continue with my tried and tested method of old. But if my experience of this past few days continues, and I am incapable of getting good sized audiences into my room on a regular basis, then I will have to reconsider this promotional method in future. Let’s be honest, I’m not getting any younger and it’s knackering!

Oh yes, and those bloody posters that I paid extra for have done bugger all. I haven't even seen the damn things yet! Mental note: Do not spend money on big posters in future.

(It’s an hour later than when I started this blog. I check back on my sales. It’s 8.35pm and they’ve crept up to… 53)

UPDATE: In the end, sales of Monday's show ended up at 63*, after two minutes of last minute "they start soon" flyering. Could it be that was the most effective flyering of the day?

The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th (not Aug 8 & 9)

*PS For the record we sold fewer on the first Monday in 07, 08 and 09, but this was our worst result since then. Tuesday, also a 2-for-1 day, currently stands at 54. Let's have another go shall we? (To be continued)