Today I filled an entire wall with pictures of myself. It wasn't just a fit of egotism, in fact it was all marketing for my show, MATT LACEY: CLASSROOM WARRIOR, which is on in the beautiful 'French Quarter' of the Voodoo Rooms, West Register Street at 7.30pm during the Edinburgh festival. Wow, that just rolled off the tongue, didn't it? Nice marketing, Matt.
Anyway, the reason I filled a wall with posters at Cowgatehead, opposite the Underbelly was so that people can use the pen I've supplied and doodle on them. It's the sort of stunt that can grab headlines (so far, no headlines have been grabbed...). But in all seriousness, there is an art to selling an Edinburgh show to the general public, so in order to help you I've jotted down top tips from my years of experience up here.
1. Have a good image on your poster/flyer. It's all well and good having something funny, but don't make it horrible-looking. When I received the flyer below, I genuinely grimaced. It could be a great show, but I just don't want to see faces on feet.
2. Get up to the fringe early to get your posters up. Space gets filled very quickly in Edinburgh and postering over other people will not make you any friends.
3. When giving out your flyers, do it somewhere that's not so busy that no one will stop for a chat. Actually talking to people rather than just shouting "five stars!" or "come to my show you cunt!" at them as they pass will pay dividends.
4. Use social meeja: get as many people as you can to 'like' your show. Then friends of friends might come when they see all that. And if you'd like to join the hordes of the blogosphere who have already 'liked' my show, you can do so here: https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/matt-lacey-classroom-warrior-free
5. Do a free show. People are more likely to come to a free show. Obviously. It doesn't cost em nuffink.
6. Play to a room slightly smaller than you think you can fill. You're more likely to fill it then. Duh.
7. Put videos on the internet and that sort of stuff. That worked pretty well for me.
8. Have a good show. When people enjoy a show, they'll tell others, and some even come twice.
9. Do the fringe over a number of years. Eventually all the stars and quotes start to add up, and they look good on promotional literature. Plus, people start to feel sorry for you and come along to make you feel better about your poor life choices.
10. Always have flyers on you. Then when you get chatting to someone and they ask you what you're doing up here, you can give them a slip of paper that reminds them your show, MATT LACEY: CLASSROOM WARRIOR is at 7.30 in the Voodoo Rooms, West Register Street.
11. Mention your show a lot. Eventually people will believe they're hearing about it from different sources, and say things like, "Wow, that MATT LACEY: CLASSROOM WARRIOR has some buzz about it, eh?" "Yeah, I better make sure I head down to the Voodoo Rooms at 7.30."
12. Write a blog post that is essentially a poorly-disguised marketing pitch for your show...
Happy Marketing! And if you're up in Ediburgh, please pop into Cowgatehead upstairs (opposite the Underbelly) and doodle all over my posters. So far me as Hitler and a pirate have been my favourites. I'll put the best ones up on twitter.
In case you missed that morsel of information, you can come see Matt in his show at the Voodoo Rooms every day except next Monday: https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/matt-lacey-classroom-warrior-free