Madeline Bennett - PRing the Fringe

The Edinburgh Festival, the largest culture festival on the planet, kicked off last weekend, offering an unrivalled three week programme of theatre, comedy, music, musicals, art, dance, talks and debates – esPResso’s sister publication ThreeWeeks is covering it all as we speak.

With more than 700 independent promoters and producers staging, between them, more than 2000 shows over a three week period, there is a considerable publicity machine behind the festival as performers compete for column inches and the ticket buyer’s pound. Many London entertainment public relations firms relocate to the Scottish capital for August to lead the PR for a group of artists and performers.

One such PR firm is Prospero Communications, run by Madelaine Bennett. Her company is especially interesting in that, while she is currently busy leading the publicity campaigns for some of the UK’s best stand up comedians and ‘Pot Noodle: The Musical’, outside of August she works for a wide range of clients in much more serious industries.

esPResso spoke to Madeline about her career, her company, and PRing musical theatre themed around Pot Noodle.

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How did you get into PR?

People think getting into PR is really hard, but it’s actually only hard to get into cool PR. There are plenty of jobs (granted mainly in London) for junior IT PRs and so I got in that way. It can be hard to change focus, as PRs tend to find niches and stick to them, but when I realised how much I wanted to do arts PR full time (which I’d always done bits of freelance) I set up my own company.

Was it what you always planned to do?

Kind of, it was certainly something I considered at university, but to be honest, I didn’t really know what PR was until I started working in the sector. Does anyone actually know what a PR person does until they are one?

Why did you decide to set up your own company?

On a whim – I was bored with my job, I wanted a change, I’d had a bad day and I resigned before I could talk myself out of it. I’ve been very lucky that I have consistently had enough work over the last three and a half years.

There seem to be a lot of entrepreneurs in the PR sector who go on to set up their own agencies – why do you think that is?

I think that it’s because whereas there used to be a lot of huge multi-million pound PR agencies, more and more clients (even the big ones) prefer to be looked after by a company that is more boutique and more personal. They want to know they matter. This means that rather than having a few big agencies, there’s been a trend towards lots of smaller ones with 10 staff or fewer. We have a team of five which goes up to seven during the Festival.

You work for a varied mix of clients – how would you describe the area of PR you work in?

Our corporate arm does a whole mix of PR, from finance to human resources to energy services, and our arts arm does comedy, theatre and the occasional bit of music. People often ask me where my expertise lies and I can only ever think of one sensible answer “in PR”. I like everything and it makes good business sense to be diverse.

How does PRing an insurance company compare to PRing a comedian at the Edinburgh Festival?

I wish it was essentially the same, but it’s completely different. All the nuances are completely different, the tactics change. But it’s all still emails, phonecalls and meetings from dusk til dawn, that doesn’t change.

How did you get into comedy and theatre PR, and what does it involve?

When I set up Prospero I already knew a lot of people in the comedy industry, but I wasn’t part of the inner circle at all (not to say I necessarily am now!) so I just networked like crazy. Hils Jago of the [London based] AmusedMoose comedy clubs also showed tremendous faith in me and bigged me up to just about everyone she met, which did me a lot of good as she only praises people who impress her! Our comedy tends to focus on Edinburgh and on tours, our theatre is more mixed and we’re really beginning to PR more and more London runs, which is great. We have a brilliant theatre PR called Elin who works for Prospero and she is making real inroads establishing that side of the business.

What is it like being a PR representative for acts at the Edinburgh Festival?

Wonderful and horrible. You share their joy at four and five star reviews, and share their pain with ones and twos. And you have to be really really pesky and yet as friendly as possible if you want journalists to come and see shows.

Who are you working for at the Fringe this year, and what are your hot tips?

I’ve got 18 shows at the Fringe this year and it would be hugely unprofessional to highlight just a few. I’ve turned down a lot more acts than I accepted, so I have great faith and belief in everyone I work with and they are ALL my top tips – there’s a full list here. Is it naughty to link to everyone? I call it good PR.

What’s it like PRing a musical about pot noodle?

‘Pot Noodle’ has been fascinating. It’s the first time a show has ever been backed in this way [brand owner Unilever are actively supporting the show] and it’s amazing to be involved in something like that. I’m only the PR for the actual show – Pot Noodle themselves have their own PR company – so my remit is the same as all the other shows I’m promoting. It has a great director and an amazing cast, and I’m very proud of all the coverage it’s been getting at the Festival!

What are your ambitions for Prospero and your own PR career?

I don’t think I’ll ever make Prospero into a multi million (or even a singular million) pound company, and we’d never want to employ more than 10 people, so what I would really like is to continue to be profitable, and for the company to have the income available for me have a bit more time off! I just want to continue to do what I’m doing but have a few more lie-ins…

There’s more about Madeline’s company at www.prosperocommunications.co.uk