Just Imagine
Just Imagine – a podcast series from Imagine Theatre, one of the world’s leading producers of professional pantomime. With over 250 productions to their name, Imagine are true experts in this uniquely British theatrical tradition.
Join host Martin Ballard as we go behind the scenes to meet the people who bring the magic to life – discovering their stories, their roles, and answering that all-important question: what do they do for the rest of the year?
Along the way, we’ll explore the pantomime genre itself – its quirks, its history, and why it continues to delight audiences across the UK. Whether you’re a panto fan, theatre lover, or just curious about what it takes to stage hundreds of shows at once, Just Imagine offers a fun and fascinating listen.
Just Imagine
Episode 139 - A Year In The Life Of A Producer - Part Three with Sarah Boden
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Episode 139 – A Year in the Life of a Producer: July, August & September
In Episode 139 of the Just Imagine podcast, Martin Ballard is joined once again by Imagine Theatre Joint CEO Sarah Boden for the third instalment of our four-part series looking at a year in the life of a pantomime producer.
As the summer draws to a close, the countdown to pantomime is gathering pace. Children's auditions are underway across the country, with hundreds of young performers being selected for this year's junior ensembles – and thousands of documents being processed to make sure they're ready to take to the stage.
Martin and Sarah explore the many moving parts happening behind the scenes during July, August and September, including casting, children's licensing, costume fittings, music and script choices, backstage recruitment, technical planning and the preparation of sets, costumes, wigs and props at Imagine's production facilities.
They also discuss why every pantomime needs to be tailored to its individual venue and audience, from knowing when to keep much-loved traditions such as The Twelve Days of Christmas to adapting backstage teams and technical requirements to suit very different theatres across the UK.
There's also a fascinating look at F2 budgeting – the stage of the production year when costs for cast, crew, lighting, sound, transport, costumes and other elements are being locked in – as well as the huge amount of planning required to organise payroll for hundreds of people working across the pantomime season.
And, as always with pantomime, there's room for a few last-minute surprises… including the memorable story of the producer who suddenly realised they had forgotten to order a giant!
This episode offers another behind-the-scenes look at just how much work goes into getting 21 pantomimes ready to open, long before the audiences arrive.
Just Imagine is the podcast series from Imagine Theatre, hosted by Martin Ballard. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and catch up with the previous episodes in the A Year in the Life of a Producer series.
Just Imagine a podcast series from Imagine Theatre.
SPEAKER_00Hello again, and welcome to episode 139 of this podcast series from Imagine Theatre, and this is the third part of a quarterly series looking at a year in the life of a producer.
SPEAKER_01For more information, go to their website at www.imagintheatre.co.uk.
SPEAKER_00In the last episode, I was joined by Imagine's joint CEO Steve Bowden and actor, playwright and director Fraser Boyle to discuss another stock pantomime title, and this time we focused on The Little Mermaid. Now this is just one of the many things we've discussed on the series so far. We've met all sorts of fascinating guests from creatives and backstage team members to panto practitioners and academics. We've discussed lots of different aspects of the genre, from specific panto characters and titles to how pantomime is produced, its history and its future. Now there's a full index to all of the episodes so far on the Imagine website, and you can catch up with any of the episodes you've missed where you normally get your podcasts. And while you're there, don't forget to subscribe to the series so that you don't miss out in the future. So this time I'm back here at Trafalgar House once again with joint CEO Sarah Bowden, concentrating on a year in the life of a producer. And once again, it's another busy period, Sarah. So how are you? Hi Martin. Off we go. So we're gonna talk about F2 in a moment's time, which if you heard the last episode, you'll be intrigued by. But at this stage, you've probably made all the final casting announcements now, and we're going into that period with the final children's auditions and so on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so at this period in time, this kind of podcast is gonna cover July, August, and September. Um, and yes, we're absolutely at that throws and we've done more than half of the children's auditions. We are actively going around the country recruiting the children at the moment. Children's licensing is being acquired. Well, the children's forms are all being filled in. Um and yet we are uh ready to go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's mountains and mountains of paperwork, as we s sort of hinted at in the last episode. But that's a really long process, and even though you haven't cast all of the uh junior choruses yet, those some of those licenses are already being applied for.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I mean, obviously the children also require chaperone, so we've got to recruit all of those as well. But each child has to have permission from the school to miss school, a medical form, a costume measurement form, they have to sign a contract to say they're happy to perform and that they're gonna behave. We have to fill in the performance license per child, we have to do the schedules to get them off school, you know. And if you think each child probably needs seven or eight different documents, and we're dealing with best part of 500 children, and suddenly you realise that the children's department is dealing with three and a half or four thousand documents, and that's without the chaperones, that's just to get the children on stage. It's a lot of paperwork.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And the audition process is quite complicated in itself to get those junior ensemble members in the first place, and that's something that happens at pretty much every venue around the country, apart from two, which you spoke about last time. Two shows that you've picked up this year that will not have junior ensembles this year, but hopefully will next year.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's right. That's Bromley and Cardiff. So we inherited those venues this year, our first year is producing in them. They haven't had children's ensembles in the past, so the decision was taken that we wouldn't reintroduce them this year, but it doesn't mean it's not coming and we won't keep fighting the corner of getting children into Panto because we believe passionately about them being there. But yes, there's an awful lot of stuff going on. I love children's audition days, they're one of my favourite days of the year when we get to get the honour of auditioning the children and those bright eyes and those wonderful smiles, and they are they're just my favourite day. I wish I could take them all. I always say this and every day, and I genuinely mean it. I genuinely wish we could take all of the children, but we just can't. And also, as well as it being my favourite day of the year, it also presents the hardest 20 minutes of each year because we have to make those difficult decisions, particularly right at the end of the day, about which children are in and which are out, and then in turn for the children who are in, which ones are in the shows and which ones are a reserve teams, and that's always the hardest of the day. And and it breaks my heart that a child might go away thinking they're not good enough, but the reality is more often than not, they really are good enough. We just can't take them all.
SPEAKER_00Well, we've talked about this before, haven't we? There's lots of things to consider in the audition process. It's not just how good you are, because many of them are more than good enough, but it's in terms of the number of children that you can have. You know, we're talking about thousands and thousands coming to auditions all over the UK for your shows, of which you're taking two, maybe three groups sometimes and one reserve group at each venue. So it's it's pretty challenging. One thing I would say is that every single one of them have a ball. You know, some parents might be thinking the audition process is a bit like an X Factor or Britain's got talent, ruthless. It's not at all. It's a fun day, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's really important that they have fun. It's really important that they go away feeling that actually they can have another go another time and that they're welcome and that panto is for everybody. I would hate to think a child went away not having enjoyed an element. There will be disappointment, of course there will. But I would hope that they all enjoy themselves dancing. We try and make it a really supportive environment. You know, we've touched upon before, Martin. Our own daughter did six pantomimes at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. Um, in the first year, we auditioned her anonymously and sent her with a random family member and and didn't tell anybody who she was, and she got in of her own merit. And those six years, she would say, are the best Christmases of her life. She absolutely loved being part of the show, of being able to perform, of learning about how to think on your feet, remembering the time that Cinderella's carriage doesn't fly, for example, and what you have to do to think on your feet, or the time that you know there's an accident outside of work. The principal boy in a particular production at the Belgrade fell on ice outside of work and couldn't go to work because she'd broken her arm. So the whole company steps up, and there's Holly finding herself as the ghost in the ghost routine, happiest ghost in the ghost routine I've ever seen. But you know, that thinking on your feet, and suddenly you're thrown into a situation you've never rehearsed for. You've got to think and you've got to create whatever's gonna go on in your mind and think about everybody around you. And I always say to the parents of the successful children, the child we will take off you and the child we will give back to you will be a completely different person because they will have learnt. They'll have learned about themselves, they'll have learnt to cope in situations they'd never have thought to put themselves in. They'll learn how to hang their costumes up when they're told, they'll learn how to behave backstage, they'll learn teamwork, camaraderie, and I'll probably hand back a heartbroken child because they'll be devastated, it's over, but an experience that they can't put into words, and that's always a huge reward about what we do.
SPEAKER_00The other thing I was going to say is that if you go to first day of rehearsals and you look at um an ensemble, a senior ensemble, you can tell which of them has actually been in a junior ensemble and which one because they get panto. We've talked about this before. There is nowhere really in the education system, whether it be state education, drama school, or wherever, that tells you about panto. But if you've done it as a junior ensemble member, you get it.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. It always, you know, I I talk regularly to different courses and drama schools, and I say, please, please put in a module about panto, or even just one session within the three-year course where you cover Panto or have us in to do a session with you and teach you about Panto and that heightened performance that is Panto and the way that we play Panto and the truth that sits behind performances that need to go into Panto. Because there is no module anywhere, I don't think my major it may have changed because certainly I've been banging the drum a lot, about but there's no way you can go to be trained in Panto. So you're so right, we do, we absolutely can see those who've performed in Panto before and who understand that yeah, you may be having a really bad day, but you've still got to smile because to the audience it's the first time they've seen that show and it's their very special moment, and you can absolutely pick it out, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so at this time of year, the costume fittings are still going on, you'll still be having creative meetings, but some things will be now pretty much set in stone. The script, for example, and music choice.
SPEAKER_02Yep, they are typically really set in stone at this stage, although, as we touched upon in the last episode, they can change at this point in time, particularly if a really great tune comes out. 2025 was a brilliant music year, but it came really late in the year, so we made some very late changes to music choices, we made some very late changes to script references based upon things that were going on in the world. But yes, at this point we know what's going on, we know what the shows are, we know what comedy routines are going into each script, we know who our casts are pretty much. We've pretty much locked the shows in at this stage, yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so if the song choices are known, it may be that the tracks are being recorded, backing vocals and so on. Um, it it at least if they aren't now, they will be in the next few weeks.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there will always be an element of reuse, Martin. We'll talk you know about sustainability and reuse in future episodes because there's lots to talk about with that and how much we can reuse and how how reuse within Panto is a key part of what we do. So there will always be some tracks that will stay with a production of Jack and the Beanstalk because they're the right sentiment or they're the right music or they've been arranged correctly. So there will be an element of identifying which tracks are staying as are, an element of which are the new tracks of the year, who do we want new arrangements from. We might change the configuration of a band. We might have always had, for example, keys and a bass guitar and drums. We might change that to keys and drums and woodwind, for example, depending upon the requirements of the score. So that's all the stuff that if it hasn't been locked already, is imminent to lock. Musical directors, musical arrangers, musical directors are working flat out, backing vocals. We tend to have some that put the BVs on themselves so they have their own internal people come in. Sometimes we will take a track and we will do a mass BV record ourselves, lock a group of people away for two weeks and literally record the backing vocals that way. Again, it varies depending upon what we tend not to do is to repeat huge amounts of stuff. There will be, of course, an element of repeating some tracks between an Aladdin, some tracks between a Cinderella, some tracks with a Jack and the Beanstalk, because that's the nature of coming to a producing house rather than an independent creative production. We we do have that element of reuse, but there will only be an awful lot that's also being created specifically for a specific venue.
SPEAKER_00And again, you know, shows do come round in the venues, particularly in previous years. Cinderella particularly will come round maybe four or five years at the same venue. Uh that's when you have to be really careful about repetition, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02It is, although again, and Martin, we've talked about your experience with this and the time you know that the year that we decided to change the ghost song, and we had backlash so much so that about five performances into the run we took the ghost song back to where it had always been because there is an element of never repeating stuff that we've talked about before, but there's also an element of familiarity that the audiences really like. You know, we've got one venue in particular, Leicester. They absolutely insist that we put 12 days of Christmas into that show every year because it's a traditional element within that venue. We've got other venues that say we don't want 12 days of Christmas, we had it last year. So again, it depends upon what the audience's expectation is. And you know, we've literally almost got this massive master spreadsheet of what each audience likes and what it is we should put in and what we shouldn't put in the venues, depending upon the audience's needs and and whether you've got a returning cast or whether you've got a new cast, whether you've got a Dane that returns year on year. You know, Lemmington Spa this year, we don't have JP McQueen and Sean Dodds who've done it for 12-13 years in Lemmington. There will inevitably be things that people are familiar with, there will be inevitably be things that we have to change because we're changing what's going on in the show. So that's all the elements being locked in right now as well.
SPEAKER_00And it's important to stress that we mentioned several times before on the podcast that every show is for that specific local audience, and so it will be tailored. And Twelve Days of Christmas in Leicester is a great example of that. If the audience loves something, you want to give it to them rather than just giving them something that you know you think might work. DSMs, show callers, and company stage managers pretty much set in stone now as well?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're in that stage of some of them have been recruited for a while, some of them are being recruited now. Obviously, the backstage teams are key. Some will have um a combined company manager DSM show caller, some will have a separate company manager, some will have a separate show caller, or will have an ASM, some will have a Tech SM, some will have two wardrobes, some will have wardrobe and a dresser, some will have wardrobe that's there for the beginning of the run but not the end. You know, it all depends upon the requirements of the venue, the budgets available within that particular venue, the expectations of the of the building. Some theatres will have a team that we can pull on it in-house, so we use the in-house team, some of them won't. Again, all of these are variables, and when you say you're producing a panto, there isn't a one size that fits all model. Certainly, not in our world, there isn't. And you have to work with each individual venue depending upon what that looks like. You know, you might have a group of venues like Trafalgar, where we have a framework agreement generally in place with them, which states generally what the deal is going to look like across all of the Trafalgar venues, but then there are nuances even within those. So even though you try and have uh what we call a connected parties agreement, so you have to show as a connected party that you're having a fair agreement, but then there's nuances. Yeah, sometimes they pay overtime on certain days, some they don't, some have got triple time, some have got double time, all of these elements that we have to think about depending upon those venues. But yeah, all of these things are the things we're locking in right now.
SPEAKER_00And again, you know, looking at the venue staff, for instance, in terms of the uh the deal you do with the venue, they'll need different amounts of backstage staff at each venue for different reasons. And a great example is some theatres might have automated flies, some people might have manually operated flies, some might not even have a fly tower. So every venue is very different, and that's why you need different amounts of people backstage.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, every venue and every production is different. So if you take um somewhere like uh De Montfort Hall, obviously, because we both know it well, you can't fly in De Montfort Hall. There is no fly tower. So if you were to put a production of something like Peter Pan into De Montfort Hall, you've also putting a flying rig in top of a venue that can't fly. So that adds a complication to the amount of staff that you need. Or if you take someone like Eden Court in Venice, which has this absolutely enormous stage, 52 fly bars, it's a huge stage, it can house pretty much any production in the UK. We can put anything in there, so we can go as big or as small as we want to. Then you've got other venues like the Lyceum Theatre in Crewe, which is a hemp flying house, and you know, all of these things, and they've got the biggest rake on the stage in the UK, so we have to think about how we're gonna control flats when they're being taken in because of the of the rake and all of these elements that that people don't realise as we're planning the crewing, depending upon the set that's going in, the nature of the production, the scale of the production, the number of crew that particular show might need, it varies every single year, and it's almost impossible to replicate that model as well.
SPEAKER_00I've looking around the building today, and everybody seems to be either covered in paint or glitter because there's been a lot of that going on, hasn't there?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this is that point when it's it's paint, paint, paint, scenic, scenic, scenic. So lines of shoes out. Now that we've got most people cast and we know what shoe size they are, for example, Alex and the team are flat out painting the shoes. We will paint them or we will glitter them. The great thing about this new building is that we can literally paint a hundred pairs of shoes on a Friday night and leave them to dry overnight and then put them away on a Monday morning. You know, that's the kind of activities we're doing. There's lots and lots of costume cleaning going on, wig preparation going on, sewing machines are working ten to the dozen at the moment. Um, glitter everywhere, scenic artists everywhere. As we try and get the end of the good weather, because obviously the drying time for paint gets slower the more you go into winter. So, in an ideal world, you would get as much of the scenic preparation done during the warmer months as you can.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and with the lease aspect of the business as well, do you know pretty much by now we're in September? Do we know you know what you're leasing, or do you get really late calls for bits of set and costume even you know in October time?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so the highest business is pretty much locked in now. We're pretty much there with it. My favourite one ever was a phone call that came from a producer that will remain unnamed, who we were just loading their production of Jack and the Beanstalk onto a lorry, and the producer rang in a panic and went, Have you got a spare giant? And we said, Well, yeah, we've got the one that sits at the very back of the stores that's a bit knackered, and yeah, you can have him if you like. Yeah, we'll do any work. Just throw me a giant on the lorry. I've forgotten to order a giant, and that was literally in the first week of December when they realised they hadn't got a giant, and we'd just got, you know, the one that we've never used for years, but came back in pristine condition because they'd brought someone in to repair it and make it good. But that that and you know, you you can meticulously plan all you like, but it's easy to just forget that one element like somebody assumed somebody else had booked a giant. Um, you know, it doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. And there will be last-minute calls coming through, there'll be last-minute changes. You know, we can hire a set of costumes to a hire, and then their dame might drop out, and then suddenly we've got to refit all the dame costumes again. These are the kind of things that you just get used to at this time of year, and and actually nobody challenges it because as a producer we understand that these things just happen, and you're never gonna judge anybody because they've got to change something because we've all been there at some point.
SPEAKER_00Well, luckily for them, you've got so many costumes here because by this time of year, in September, October, many of those are already allocated, but you've still got quite a few that uh are still here. So that you know, there are some to choose from.
SPEAKER_02Oh gosh, and you know, and everybody goes, Oh, what does the unit look like at the end of the year? Have you cleared it out? No. You'd be amazed at how much is still in here, even in the height of the season, because even not all shows take all elements of a set. So you know, we we talked we talked about Lyceum Theatre Crew, for example, a little bit earlier. It can't take all elements of a set. So we you know, if we if we're putting an ex Belgrade set in, it won't be able to take the vomitary pieces because it doesn't have enough wrap around. Whereas if we were to put that set into the Hexican Reading, it would take the vomitaries and it would have the wrap around. So there will always be things left here, and and the whole point of having a costume store is that we have spare options. You know, we we you sometimes you just get that phone call that says this set of costumes doesn't quite work, or this children's ensemble set of costumes doesn't quite work for the feel we want. Do you have anything spare? And we're like, Yeah, you send those ones back, we'll send you another set because another venue might come to us and say, Have you got a spare set? And that's happened before now, and that's that's just what happens. We try and lock in as much as we can as early as we can, but change happens.
SPEAKER_00We've said that the script is pretty much locked in, the music choices are pretty much locked in, so the creatives now can look at that. Choreographers might be even thinking about what they want each song to look like on the stage. But does that mean you know that sound and lighting plans are also being made now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're pretty much locked as well. We know what that's going to look like. And you know, yes, there will be choreographers and directors, but we also need the choreographers and directors to tell us now what it is that they want so that we can make sure we send it because those last-minute orders are the things that are really tricky to manage otherwise. But yeah, sound and lighting is pretty much locked. Now we're out shopping for you know, we go to the suppliers and say, Here's all our sound designs, let's look at what the prices are, and then we start the bartering process. Same with hire with lighting and all of those elements. We've got to get the designs to then be able to get the prices to then be able to lock that in. So if we haven't done that already, then we are we're behind the game.
SPEAKER_00And of course, there will be specific elements that some venues want in their lighting or sound design that others don't, and that has to be budgeted, of course. And the simple thing like I don't know, a UV sequence for for whatever reason, you know, means that that has to be designed and planned ahead, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it does, and obviously every venue has a different different technical rig as well, Martin. So some will have a sound S that we can use on Panto, some won't. Some will have a full lighting rig that we can use, some won't. Some will be able to take their dimmers, will be able to take everything we want to put in, others won't. And so all of these things have to be considered, you know. There is only a limited amount of power that goes into each building. And if you want to add in a flying carriage effect, for example, and you want to add in streamers, or you want to add in all these elements, the power can only provide a certain amount of power. And if you're dealing with a flying carriage and your sound system and the lighting rig and all of the other elements of the building, and also they're getting the teas and coffees front of house ready, so they've got to be boiling the kettles to make sure everybody's ready to have a drink in the interval, or they're getting the the coffee machines powered up. All of these crazy things have to be factored into the lighting designs and the sound designs. Designs and all of the elements you have to think about when planning the use of a building.
SPEAKER_00Okay, let's talk about the P word payment schedules, because that's something that you're very much looking at now, and then we'll talk about F2. But in terms of the payment schedules, it seems early to be thinking about that, but it's not really, is it? September's the perfect time to start.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and if you think about it, if we bring on board, by the time you've you've calculated all your chaperones, all of your uh you know, freelancers, your lighting designers, sound designers, cast members, crew, back of stage, front of house, all of those elements that you have to think about. You could be dealing with a payroll in excess of 750 people, and each one of those people has to be paid in the right week, the right amount of time, and you have to plan all of that, and then you track back on that. And if someone's gonna be paid on a Friday, we have to trigger that payment on the Wednesday, we have to clear it on the Tuesday, and you and then you work those schedules backwards, and you go, Oh, okay, this is quite complicated, and you're looking at a period, you know, we're going to be going into rehearsals at the beginning of November, and we're going to be closing the pantos on the 10th or 11th of January. And you go, right, there's a kind of an eight, nine-week period there, plus the holiday pay, plus the understudy payments, and all of these elements, and you could be looking at some of these pantos having 10 different payroll payments going through Glasgow, for example, is 10 individual different payments, and then you think about that's quite a lot of logistics to be planning, and you're not going to do that in five minutes. And because it doesn't just impact us here at Imagine, it then has to go into the Trafalgar finance team to make that happen. And the finance team has to make sure it's entered into Business Central, the payment system, the payroll team have to look after the payments onto the payroll elements, we have to get it into the people management systems and all of the logistics that sit behind the scenes. And if we're not planning the payroll schedules now and we're not getting that all cleared, and we're not getting all of that put into the system, we will miss making those payments because those logistics have to be put in place now. So, yeah, we are already actively working out the dates the payments are going to be approved, the dates the payment runs are going to go through, which shows are being paid and which elements, who's going to manage those within the finance team. And it yeah, just the payroll alone is a full-time job just to make sure everybody gets paid at the right times.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, one thing I would say, and I've spoken to lots of people about this working for various different companies, and I can honestly say, hand on heart, that imagine are one of the few companies I've ever worked for who always pay on time. Now, there will be things that can happen that means that that might not happen in an isolated uh occasion, but generally speaking, that's always meticulously planned. So well done.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. And it it is, it's it's a team effort. You know, I we always say, don't we, in Panto takes an army, and it does. It takes an army of people that listeners probably don't even imagine exist behind the scenes. We are determined to make sure people are paid on time. There will always be that one or two anomalies where they might have typed in the bank details incorrectly and got two numbers the wrong way round, and when the payment is sent, it bounces back. That's more often than not the problem that we have is that two digits have gone their own way around in someone's bank details when they've entered them, but that's only ever going to be in week one. Yeah. Once we've got over that issue, then the payments will run smoothly in the remainder of the run because hopefully we've done all the prep behind the scenes to make it work. So, yeah, fingers crossed, it's it's one of the things that we pride ourselves on.
SPEAKER_00Last time we spoke about F1, didn't we? And we weren't talking about Lewis Hamilton or the uh you know Monte Carlo Grand Prix. We were talking about you know the budgeting throughout the year. So explain to us, just recap if you could on what F1, F2, and F3 are, and then we'll talk about what F2 is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, of course. So Trafalgar manages its budgeting year in four elements. It has its budget, which goes on in January, February, which is at the point at which we don't quite know what the shows are. So we can't lock our show budgets in at that time. We can give a guesstimate of where we think we're going to get to, where we think the incomes might get to, and we can put together a kind of guesstimate budget. F1 happens in June, and that's when we really do start to lock in the shows. We know the scale of the shows and we know where we are, we know all the elements of that. F2 is what's happening right now, and F2 is done by the end of September, and that's the point of which we really do know what we're paying people. We'll know what our lighting designs are, and therefore what our lighting higher costs are going to be, our sound higher costs, our transport costs, all those variable elements that we have to work on year on year are now being locked in screen higher. If we're doing any digital shows, um, we might know what all our cast and crews are going to cost us at this stage. We might know what costumes we've got to continue to make or what investments we've got to make. So F2 is that point at which we go. We now we've already set the budgets in June, but now we really know those extraneous bits that we can only lock in once we've decided, we'd once you've done both the production meetings or um scripts are locked in, we know what the music is, we know all the breakdowns of everything. We've then still got F3 to go. F3 happens in December, but that's more about actuals rather than about budget locking.
SPEAKER_00So even though F2 is locked in at this stage, you know, there will still be things that occur that you haven't predicted. So there is a little bit of flexibility still.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, and F2 numbers will change and everybody recognises that. So there might be you know changes to casting that cost us more, cost us less, or we've been you know, we've been able to get a deal whereby we've been able to go to a single supplier for all the lighting, for example. That's not always possible because the reality is when you're dealing with the length and breadth of the country, you're trying to marry that that between if I get a deal everywhere and I've got a panto in Ferrum and I've got a panto in Inverness, at some point I'm going to incur the transport costs, which make that not cost effective anymore. So it's looking at all of those and where the most suitable suppliers are for the generic bulk of our locations, and then looking at the outliers like the Invernesses and the and the Swansies and things like that, who we may try and go more locally with. It just depends upon the deals that come through and what we can what we can do. And also, you know, thinking about our sustainability footprint, Martin, we'll do a podcast talking a lot. Well, we've done the podcast talking about sustainability in the past. We'll do more looking at that moving forward. So we have to look at the balance between cost savings and sustainability because we might save the costs at this end by not paying out, but we'll pay it at the other end by offsetting our carbon footprint. So it's balancing all of that.
SPEAKER_00Just before we finish, venue meetings ongoing, and one of the things you may be uh doing now is the final programmes for the shows because the artwork will have been done, you know your castings, they won't be going to print necessarily now, but you'll have them pretty much set.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're starting to get the biogs in, pretty much aware of what's going in. Obviously, uh the elements are there. They are always fly by the seat of your parents printing till the last minute, so they will really go to print in November. But we've got the outline of them all laid out alongside all the work the marketing team are doing now that we've complete pretty much completed all the photo shoots. Doesn't mean we've done them all, but we've done the majority of them. We've just got a few press launches still to do. Things will change on all of those, but yeah, not far off on the programmes now.
SPEAKER_00And in terms of the programmes, obviously there'll be some information that will be in every Imagine show, you know, the Imagine stuff if you like, but the venue uh may want to put some stuff in. So are those meetings carried out earlier in the year? So you agree on what goes into the programmes?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, we've got some venues with very special celebrations, like the Victoria Theatre Halifax is a special celebration this year, as does Eden Court in Vanessa, and so they will probably want a few more pages back from us so that they can do their special celebrations. And normally you agree the volume of pages between the venue and the producer, but you know, when there's a special event like that, it's always nice to make the program a celebratory event rather than worrying about who worked on the show from our side. It's all about the venue.
SPEAKER_00Well, look, we've got one more of these episodes still to come. It's a four-part series looking at a year in the life of a producer. And the fourth and final part is coming up at the end of November, the beginning of December. That's when the chaos really does take over. And we'll look forward to speaking to you then, Sarah. But in the meantime, thank you so much for talking to us.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Martin.
SPEAKER_00And that's it for now. Don't forget to subscribe through your favourite podcast app and join me, Martin Ballard, next time for episode 140, when I'll be chasing the governess as TV personality, star of the chase, and panto veteran Anne Heggerty, gets ready to appear in Jack and the Beamstalk for Imagine at Ferrum Live.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for listening to the latest edition of Just Imagine, the podcast series from Imagine Theatre. And you can find out more by going to www.imaginetheatre.co.uk
