Phew!! It was such a remarkable final quarter of 2015.
October and November saw audience numbers rise for all of our shows on a like for like basis. In December, we had a record number of ticket sales for our Jack and the Beanstalk Christmas pantomime. Whether we look at audience numbers, novelty sales, programmes, ice cream and even our bucket rattling fundraising, it’s clear to see that we broke all of our records on every front.
Over 14,000 people visited the theatre to see our festive pantomime and that is truly remarkable for the area.
We have established good relationships with our partners over the last few years including the artist agents that we use and also with our producer of the last eight annual pantomimes, Pendle Productions. A special mention to the Managing Director of Pendle Productions, Tim Lince, for the quality of the performers and the content of our family pantomimes.
This year, we have had more dance schools taking part. We would like to thank the child stars, their parents and all of the adults involved. It makes us proud to know that so many people want our unique family theatre to do so well.
We thank the work of the press and media agency we have employed during the year, Square Cactus, for being a large part of the success in 2015 with their innovative marketing help.
There are so many people needed to make a success of any enterprise. We thank our Board of Directors for being good strategists and our two hard-working employees who are amazingly good at what they do. What else can I add about our volunteers and area supervisors that I have not said before? You are all so good at what you do and you make my job as the Chairman of the theatre so much easier and such a pleasure. You organise yourselves and work hard throughout the year, especially at Pantomime time when you virtually lived at the theatre.
It feels like it has been a long journey to get the theatre to where it is now. It certainly does make you believe that your dreams can become your reality.
We have great plans for the year ahead including building improvements. On Tuesday, 2nd February we are having our first volunteer staff meeting of the year. We hope that you can come along as one of our aims for 2016 is to attract even more fantastic members.