Summer 2016: Evaluation Report 25 July – 29 August 2016
Compiled by: Charlie Risius
Mousetrap Theatre Projects 33 Shaftesbury Avenue | London | W1D 7EH 020 7632 4111 | ffn.admin@mousetrap.org.uk | www.mousetrap.org.uk
Table of Contents I.
Introduction
II.
Overall Statistics
III.
IV.
p.2
a. Participants by London Borough
p.3
b. Top Ten Referring Organisations
p.4
c. Number of Adults and Children
p.5
d. Number of Families and Tickets
p.6
Responses to Questionnaire a. How did your family enjoy the show?
p.7
b. How easy to understand was the booking leaflet?
p.7
c. How helpful was the administration and support?
p.7
d. How clear and useful were the booking details
p.7
e. Was this your family’s first visit to a West End theatre?
p.8
f. Was this your family’s first visit to any theatre?
p.8
g. Has this experience made you want to take your family to the theatre again?
p.8
h. Would you feel confident about taking up other offers?
p.8
Comments from Family First Nights Participants a. Making Theatre Affordable
p.9
b. Making Theatre Accessible
p.9
c. Organisation
p.10
d. Theatres
p.10
e. Workshops
p.11
f. Suggestions
p.11
g. General comments
p.12
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Introduction Celebrating its 18th year, Mousetrap Theatre Project’s signature programme, Family First Nights (FFN), had a great summer which ran for five weeks in 2016 from Monday, 25 July – Monday, 29 August. 588 families took part – representing 2,439 individuals of whom 1,355 were young people between the ages of 3 – 17. They were accompanied by 1,075 adults (relatives, guardians & carers). Families came from 31 London boroughs and a wide range of English counties. For the first time in 17 years, we raised the ticket price from £5 to £6. Families had a choice of 47 top West End plays and musicals, special family events and children’s theatre with all tickets at £6. The FFN 2016 leaflet offered 14 musicals, 8 plays, 7 special events at the BBC Proms and 18 shows for younger children. The most popular shows were Thriller Live, The Bodyguard, and The CBeebies Prom. We worked with 85 social service agencies, charities, community organisations and housing associations who referred families they felt would benefit from a theatre visit. Representatives of these organisations attended an information meeting on 9th June at Bloomsbury Baptist Church and were invited to Guys and Dolls as a thank you. Haringey Council sent the most number of families through the summer programme – 38 families. We offered four access performances in total. There were relaxed performances of The Gruffalo, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Bugsy Malone for families with children on the autistic spectrum and an audio-described performance of The Gruffalo for family members with a visual impairment. We also ran three, free 60 – 90 minute family workshops for In The Heights, Jungle Book and Barmy Britain in which 13 families (56 family members) participated. The Barmy Britain event included a tour of the National Portrait Gallery. In addition we hosted a free walking tour of ‘The World of Musicals’ led by veteran guide, Diane Burstein, with 3 families (6 individuals) attending. Our popular range of restaurant discount vouchers expanded to six restaurants including The Rainforest Café and Planet Hollywood as well as Chinese, Japanese and Mexican options. In early November, all 588 families plus the 5,000+ who are on our FFN database will receive a range of new offers of theatre, opera, dance and special events for the winter and spring to build on their summer experience. In addition to these special offers, we continue to send FFN families email offers on a bi-weekly basis with a very high response rate. Last year an additional 56 offers were sent. Recent offers have included free tickets to Scooby Doo Live! Musical Mysteries at the Palladium and a huge range of great West End and London shows with tickets between £5 and £10. Over the next few months in collaboration with our Family Forum, we plan to investigate why our numbers dropped slightly this summer from an intended take-up of 600 families to 588 to see if there are more ways we can assist organisations who identify families for this programme. Mousetrap Theatre Projects wishes to thank our funders for their generous support of Family First Nights: The Society of London Theatre, The Colwinston Charitable Trust, The Dorset Foundation, The Childhood Trust and Tesco. We also wish to thank the theatre producers, who by subsidising the cost of their tickets, enabled 588 disadvantaged families to attend London theatre this summer, many for the first time. The following detailed analysis of FFN 2016 is based on 141 returned questionnaires from participating families, representing 24% of attending families. Susan Whiddington, Director 23 September 2016
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Overall Statistics Participants by London Borough Out Of London
102
Sutton
48
Hackney
42
Hammersmith & Fulham
25
Southwark
24
Bexley
22
Westminster
22
Haringey
22
Merton
21
Lewisham
20
Bromley
19
Ealing
19
Barnet
18
Brent
18
Croydon
18
Camden
17
Harrow
16
Hounslow
14
Kensington & Chelsea
13
Enfield
12
Barking & Dagenham
11
Lambeth
9
Waltham Forest
9
Tower Hamlets
9
Islington
9
Wandsworth
6
Richmond
6
Newham
5
Redbridge
4
Havering
2
Greenwich
2
Kingston Upon Thames
1
3
Top Ten Referring Organisations
Haringey Council
38
Sutton Women's Aid
37
West London Action for Children
33
Young Hackney
32
SmileyArk
17
Hestia
15
Contact a Family Ealing & Southall
15
North West Surrey Fostering Association
15
Educational Solutions Team
14
East Sussex Foster Care Association
13
Contact a Family Southwark
13
Social Care
13
Howbury Friends
13
Jigsaw4u
13
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Number of adults and children attending each show Number of Adults
Number of Children (3-17) 135
Thriller Live 93
The Bodyguard 76
CBeebies Prom
63
Jungle Book 45
The Best of Barmy Britain
51
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
48
The Railway Children 37
Les Miserables The Phantom of the Opera The Secret Garden
STOMP! James and The Giant Peach The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Treasure Island In The Heights Guys and Dolls Kinky Boots Peppa Pig's Surprise Alice's Adventures in Wonderland The Tiger Who Came to Tea The Jungle Book Breakfast at Tiffany's The Woman In Black Little Shop of Horrors 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips The Scarecrow's Wedding Monski Mouse's Baby Disco Dance Hall Jersey Boys
Bugsy Malone 3 Little Pigs Show Boat Jesus Christ Superstar Prom 30: Stravinsky's 'The Firebird' Shlomo's Beatbox Adventure for Kids Oddly
98
79 73
The Gruffalo
35
46
44 33 39 28 41 29 35 27 38 28 37 28 34 25 31 22 26 20 27 17 28 19 20 16 22 15 23 17 18 15 20 11 19 10 14 12 11 8 11 8 10 8 6 5 8 4 6 4 4 3 3 1 3
5
66 60 59
86
128
161
Number of families and tickets for each show Number of families
Number of tickets 72
Thriller Live
152
35
Jungle Book The Railway Children
26
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
26
The Best of Barmy Britain
24
Les Miserables
20
The Phantom of the Opera
19
James and The Giant Peach
17
The Secret Garden
17
Treasure Island
16
STOMP!
16
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
16
Guys and Dolls
14
Peppa Pig's Surprise
14
Kinky Boots
13
In The Heights
13
The Tiger Who Came to Tea
11
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
11
The Woman In Black
9
The Jungle Book
8
Little Shop of Horrors
8
Breakfast at Tiffany's
7
The Scarecrow's Wedding
6
946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips
6
Monski Mouse's Baby Disco Dance Hall
6
Jersey Boys
4
3 Little Pigs
4
Show Boat
3
Bugsy Malone
3
Jesus Christ Superstar
3
Oddly
175
39
The Gruffalo
Shlomo's Beatbox Adventure for Kids
221
46
CBeebies Prom
Prom 30: Stravinsky's 'The Firebird'
298
52
The Bodyguard
107 108 111 84 79 69 72 64 69 65 61 47 48 61
39
45 35 38 35 38
24 30 23 19 14 13 18
10 2 8 1 6 1 4
6
149
Responses to Questionnaire 5 = Extremely
1 = Not at all
How did your family enjoy the show?
How easy to understand was the booking leaflet?
122
116
20 13
5
4
3
1
1
3
2
1
4 5
How helpful was the administration and support?
3
0
2
1
How clear and useful were the confirmation details?
120
121
15
5
4
0
4
15 3
1
0
3
2
1
3 5
7
4
3
0
0
2
1
Was this your first visit to a West End theatre?
Was this your first visit to any theatre?
Yes 69%
Yes 32%
No 68%
No 31%
Would you feel confident about taking up other offers?
Has this experience made you want to take your family to the theatre again?
Yes 99%
Yes 97%
No 3%
No 1%
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Comments from Participants Making Theatre Affordable
I love the idea of going to the theatre and giving my children the knowledge and opportunity to do so. However our financial circumstances (low income and three children!) are a barrier to exposing them to this. So cannot thank you enough for these affordable tickets. Mother, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips
My son loves trains and I had wanted to take him to see this for his birthday but couldn’t afford to. Family First Nights made it possible to take him and my daughter. We all really enjoyed the play and wish that this opportunity was always available. There are still so many other shows we’d love to see! Mother, The Railway Children
We had a lovely time as a family. It was extremely affordable and we will definitely make use of the restaurant offers should the opportunity arise again. I had the opportunity to take my niece who had never experienced the theatre before. She was overjoyed and very grateful. Mother, The Secret Garden
Making Theatre Accessible
Our son has Down syndrome and we worried it would be too loud for him, but he absolutely loved it! He was up and dancing, and thoroughly got involved, and was totally enthralled. Father, The Tiger Who Came to Tea
It was a really positive experience for the both of us. My son has mobility issues and uses a wheelchair. The theatre catered for this and were really helpful with access and where to store the wheelchair. Our child was glued to the stage-which is really unusual for him to concentrate for that long. Thank you. Mother, The Gruffalo
My daughter has a learning disability and attends a special needs school. Drama is the one thing she loves and has appeared in quite a few productions. She loved Thriller and the icing on the cake was having our own box. Mother, Thriller Live
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Organisation My family and I had a fantastic time at the theatre. It was our first experience and the children were very excited. The support given to me to get these tickets was great and the staff really helped me when I asked them for an additional ticket for the kids’ father. Mother, Thriller Live
My first and only choice was fully booked and someone rang to inform me and helped me choose a good and appropriate show for my daughters’ ages. The booking process was so easy and straight forward, we received confirmation in good time and the show was fantastic – a great time had by all! Thank you!!!!!!! Mother, The Bodyguard
Absolutely fantastic. The Family First Nights Team are very helpful and even called me to make sure I had received our acknowledgement for our booking. Highly recommend to others. Foster Parent, Thriller Live
Theatres
Excellent performance, fun time had by all. Unfortunately I omitted to mention my vertigo and as we were seated in the upper circle it was a massive problem for me. However, the staff at the theatre were amazing and changed our seats (at no extra cost) and we had a wonderful day. Thank you Mousetrap. My four year old foster child said ‘I will love it in my heart forever’. Foster Carer, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
None of us had ever been to the Globe Theatre before and we were so pleased we did – all would like to go back again, and we discovered standing tickets are not too expensive, so hopefully we will be back! Thank you! Mother, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips
We had a great time. The children can’t stop asking when next we go to the theatre. The venue staff were very helpful and it was a great environment. Mother, Cbeebies Prom
10
Workshops
We had an incredibly amazing and educational day. The girls learned to rap, dance, and further develop their knowledge on voice and the opportunity to meet other young people at the workshop. Then the show had us totally engaged hanging off our seats. Mother, In the Heights
So lovely to go to the gallery first and see all the gorgeous portraits and get a little bit more history before the play. The boys said it was great fun and would do it again… We really did enjoy it and laughed so much. A great way to get all the family involved. Mother, The Best of Barmy Britain Experience Day
This was the best FFN workshop yet, mainly because the group embraced the exercises so well. They all joined in and helped each other out. Lots of laughter and great to see parents acting alongside the children. A great afternoon! Workshop Practitioner, The Best of Barmy Britain Experience Day
Suggestions
As a lone mum, by the time I paid to get into London and for lunch I was shocked at how expensive food and drink inside the theatre was during interval. Maybe a money off voucher? Mother, Thriller Live
It would have been nice to know our seats before we went as other family members wanted to book tickets near to us but couldn't as we didn't know where we were sitting. Foster Carer, Les Misérables
There could have been more choice for pre-teenagers (age 10 – 15)
Rebecca (age 13), Les Misérables
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General Comments
We never thought of theatres as a family activity. We always would end up at the cinema or bowling. We definitely caught the theatre bug, and are already online looking for tickets. Thank you again for opening our eyes to the theatre world! Mother, The Bodyguard
It was our first time to a theatre and we had a fabulous time. All staff were very helpful. The cast was fabulous and gave an amazing performance. We didn't want it to end. I'm not sure when our next theatre night will be, but if the cost is right I would like to save and attend once a month. Mother, Thriller Live
Not my family’s first experience but my foster daughter's (sixteen years old) first time. She went grudgingly as she didn't see the point in going. Grudgingly said she enjoyed it but I know she did as she didn't look at her phone for an hour and 40 minutes. Foster Carer, STOMP!
My daughter has a few difficulties at school but has worked very hard all year so this was a lovely treat for us both. I can't praise this offer enough and would recommend this to everyone. Mother, The Phantom of the Opera
For additional information, please contact: Family First Nights, Mousetrap Theatre Projects, 33 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 7EH Tel. 020 7632 4111 or email ffn@mousetrap.org.uk www.mousetrap.org.uk
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