In August, we launched the regional theatrical tour of the Spike Milligan film and live show down the east coast of Australia. It was an ambitious experiment in alternative distribution and a promotional tour for our newly released DVD. The original plan was a five week tour playing in venues such as Bowling Clubs, RSL and Leagues Clubs and art house cinemas. The tour group consisted of performers Laura Milligan and Glenn Cardier, producer Jeff Canin and technician and road manager Mathew Gulliford and a life size doll of Spike. The show was undoubtedly a winner and audiences who saw it loved it and often stayed back to talk to Laura and Glenn for up to an hour after the show. The Spike shop was popular, especially the T-shirts and shopping bags, and many people placed advance orders for the DVD.
The tour schedule was punishing with a new town and a different venue every night. Advance publicity was hard to get as people didn't really understand until we were on the road, exactly what we were doing. Nor did we really!! The first week was exciting as we trialled the show and got the first lot of feedback. Audiences loved it. But by the end of that week, we realised we had a problem. Audience numbers were lower than we'd hoped for, and a key member of the tour became ill with exhaustion and stress, so half way through the tour, we came to the conclusion that we had to cancel the live show component. Some venues, which have digital projection facilities, decided to go ahead with film screenings only. Others accepted the cancellation with understanding and good will. Some venues, such as Canberra's Electric Shadows Cinema, Portland Star Cinema and Murwillumbah's Regent Cinema decided to run a season of the film. We also received new requests for screenings in Mount Tamborine, Mackay, Noosa Heads and Darwin. The reasons for the less than brilliant turn-out of audiences are complex and we are still trying to understand it. All the venues we'd booked said that audience attendance generally is down between 15 to 30%, even for big name, well promoted acts. People just don't want to go out at night these days, and the cost of petrol is becoming an issue. Promotion was also a problem. We didn't have much of a publicity budget and you can never get enough publicity. Some of the venues were not suited to this show, such as Leagues Clubs and RSLs. The most successful shows in relation to audience numbers and audience appreciation were at the art house cinemas as well as Yamba Bowling Club and Ettalong War Memorial Club. Audience figures are not all in yet, but to date at least 500 people have seen the show and many of these have let us know what they thought of the show. They either wrote in Spike's autograph book at the venue, sent us an email, went to our website and added their comments or voted in the IF awards (at least 50 people have sent us an email to tell us they've voted).
We feel as if we've been caught up in a gigantic wave which we decided to ride (even though we've only surfed once) and for a while there it was exhilarating and then we got dumped and now we've emerged, spitting out sand and fish and clutching a broken surf board and wondering if it was worth it - but glad we gave it a try. There were times over the past couple of months when we were having the most fun we've had in years, but also times when we thought we are quite mad and were scared out of our wits. Now, two weeks after returning home from the tour, and still trying to get the sand out of our pants, we have begun to assess the benefits of the whole experiment. I am writing up the results which we will publish on our website early next year. It was a very ambitious experiment and we won't really know if it was all worthwhile until after the ABC broadcast and when the first results of DVD sales are known - probably sometime after Christmas.
At that stage we'll know whether we ever want to try surfing again.
Cathy Henkel.
