Behind the Scenes: JATB Media Day
Thursday 8th August 2024
Take a peek behind the magic and see how our panto team get social media ready for panto!
Do you ever find yourself thinking about the upcoming holidays? In March you start thinking about Easter and how many chocolate eggs you are going to have to get for everyone, in September you start thinking about Halloween and oh, I wonder if the pumpkin spiced latte is out yet? Well, you really want to think forward, on Friday 26th July, the wonderful team at the Towngate spent the day getting… Wintery?! Friday brought together the cast of our wonderful winter spectacular, Jack and the Beanstalk, as we spent the day with lights, costumes, and most importantly, matching panto t-shirts!
Media Day is a day for us to get everyone in the room and get all our extra content for our social media channels. We film for trailers, reels, holiday greetings, and some other fun little bits to share from now until panto. For a normal show we would get these throughout the year, but as panto falls so late and makes up such a big part of our year, we get everything done early so we can have the most content for our followers.
Our Marketing Manager, Louise, and the team from Evolution pantomimes spend a lot of time leading up to the day working out the best shots to get of each of the cast, finding different ways to celebrate the holidays over the next few months. You wait until you see our set up for Halloween with Sophie Ladds, talk about SCARY!
It really is all hands on deck for the Media Day too, with our Theatre Manager, Simon, also mucking in on the work. He always takes time out of his busy schedule to get involved with Panto Media Day and as one of the co-producers of the show, has a real love for the art of pantomimes. Here is what he had to say about the day…
I am always pleasantly surprised by how excited I get on Panto Media Day. I have worked on many pantos throughout my career so you would think it would dull the magic, but it most certainly does not! Having spent the winter months through to the spring theoretically talking panto with our co-producers, Evolution (who are wonderful by the way!), it is great to see the cast come together in all their glory with so much energy. Roll on November when they are all back again!
A lot of time is spent not only picking out the costumes, but also making sure they are right for the cast. On hand for the day was Evolution’s head of Wardrobe, making sure that each of the cast were happy with their costumes and that they looked good together too. This is where we also get to see if the lights of Mikes making have worked their magic and made the costumes sparkle too.
Each of our cast get a mix of solo and group images on the day. This means we have images for things such as the programmes you can pick up during the performances, and shots that can be used in things like our relaxed performance pack for those who would like to know a little more about the show before they come to the venue.
We end the day with a group selfie to commemorate the day, and everyone says their fond farewells until we are all to meet again in November. If you haven’t booked your tickets yet, there is still time to join us for Jack and the Beanstalk! Group rates are available and there is great availability left for some of our show around Christmas. For more information or to speak to a member of staff, drop the team an email at towngateboxoffice@basildon.gov.uk or call on 01268 205300. One of the team will be happy to assist.
Although it might seem like glitz and glamour, we definitely do NOT look our best when we first get in at 8:00am. Our wonderful technical team are always first on the scene, getting everything set up with all the lights and cloths to make it look as panto as possible in the middle of July. Our Participation Officer, Tom, asked for fake snow… apparently that was a step too far. Although it is a cloth, they are heavy pieces of fabric that took three of our team to hang and set, but the gold and green looked stunning as it flew into the air. We then left it to our resident lighting magician, Mike, to bring it to life on stage and bring a bit of fairy-tale magic to the occasion.
Our lovely cast all started to arrive from 10:00am, with Aidan playing Jack getting in first, bright and early, ready to get into costume. It is always fun to see the transformations of actors into their characters, seeing what feels like a sneak peek of what we will all get to watch live on stage over the festive period! The Towngate staff got to have some fun seeing how some of the TikTok trends are done, watching our cast transition from their regular clothes into their panto-ready costumes!
0 Comments