The Rocky Horror Show probably started it off – but mainly because of the subsequent film version: the cultists who turn the show into a cause and return again and again. In fact, they have become so much a part of the show – with their own unscripted interventions to it – that when it was last staged on Broadway a few years ago the producers actually invited some to every performance to help create the ‘atmosphere’.
Chasing that holy grail of producing shows so popular that audiences will pay good money to return to them again and again, and more importantly help to spread the marketing word, too, is difficult, because theatrical cults are largely born, not made. But once they are there, creative producing can exploit and nurture it.
In New York, Rent has its Rentheads, as its passionate fans have dubbed themselves, and Jekyll and Hyde had Jekkies. Avenue Q and Wicked – both due in London this year – also have their devoted followers. But it’s not just confined to Broadway: according to a feature in today’s New York Times, there are now Altarholics – fans of the spoof off-Broadway Boy Band musical Altar Boyz.
The producers are even offering Altarholics Appreciation Days now to reward their enthusiasm. And it very cleverly provides access for the fans in a way that they would not get if they were, say, fans of a real boy band: as one Altarholic, who had seen the show 71 times, succinctly put it, “If I went to an ‘n Sync concert, Joey Fatone’s not going to talk to me. Here it’s, ‘Oh my God, Mark’s gong to come talk to me!’
But the fans talk, too, not just to their newly-crowned idols, but also to the world. Producer Ken Davenport is quoted in the New York Times pointing out how a young, computer-savvy fan base can promote their enthusiasm widely through sites like LiveJournal and MySpace – “this helps us tremendously.”
In the same way that selling a logo tee-shirt to a theatregoer is a good way of getting them to pay to become a walking billboard for you, the fans are becoming marketers for the show. And as everyone in the theatre always says, it’s word-of-mouth that’s the most important thing to sell a show. This word-of-web has opened a whole new avenue for translating that live enthusiasm even further.
There's a similar, more blatant thing going on in the music industry at the moment where fans are recruited as 'street teams' and actively encouraged to help put up posters, hand out flyers (at other 'similar band's shows), and get promo CDs to local radio stations etc before the artist comes to town. In return they get things like free t-shirts, free tickets, chances to meet the artists etc. It could certainly pay off in the theatre and musical world, for touring shows especially.