HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO PRODUCE A PLAYBILL?

This question was asked recently by one of our performing arts client. The question is relatively easy to answer. Since we are able to track time on each one of our program book projects, we have the data.  I looked at one of our mid – large distribution performing arts groups. Here is what it takes to produce a cost effective playbill for a complete Season in hours:

SALES:

Sales Campaign:

The project that I looked at was a typical season running from September to May of the following year. So when looking at time spent on this project from a sales window we typically begin the sales campaign in January. So from January through late July is the main sales campaign. (Keep in mind that we work with many different performing arts groups, so for this same period of time we are working well over 200 separate campaigns. But, if we were only working one performing arts group, the sales campaign would still begin in January.) 

The total number of man-hours that were dedicated to this particular sales campaign was 485.

PRODUCTION:

Layout & Design of playbill: 148 Hours

Proofing: 32 Hours

Customer ad design, layout & proofing: 51.75 Hours

(Note: with a customer supplied ad it will typically take 15 min. on average to manipulate to specs. If building an ad from scratch it will typically take on average 3 hours. In this particular example there were 41 ads sold and 25 of them were customer supplied and 16 were built by us.)

So total hours on production = 231.75

So total hours dedicated to the sales campaign = 485

GRAND TOTAL HOURS: 716.75 There it is! This time obviously does not include actual print time nor does it include sales time after the first book is published for the Season. What I mean by this is that we continually sell inventory throughout the season that may be available to use for ad space. Hope this is helpful…"HOW TO PUBLISH A PLAYBILL" "HOW TO SELL ADVERTISING" "FREE PLAYBILLS" "FREE PROGRAM BOOK"