Lowther Pavilion | Annual Report 2022

ANNUAL REPORT 2022 A YEAR IN REVIEW

Photo: Cinderella, 2022. Photography by Claire Griffiths.

LOWTHER PAVILION

Set in the beautiful Lowther Gardens in Lytham St Annes, the Lowther Pavilion Theatre has a proud history of serving the Fylde Coast and surrounding areas as a cultural hub of community entertainment ever since its first opening in 1921.

In 2022, we staged 400+ performances over more than 250 shows and events both indoors and outdoors.

“Visited the theatre last month for the first time, it won’t be the last. It’s a lovely venue and the show was excellent. Well worth a visit.”

- Attendee, Google Review

“Never been there before but looking forward to going to another concert or show. Great seating. Friendly staff. We saw John Owen Jones and it was a fantastic evening.”

- Attendee, Google Review

Our Audience

Our audiences are constantly changing, but over the last 12 months we particularly noticed:

• Over £1.25 million in revenue turnover

• We sold 66,000 tickets

• 10,000 of our customers book a show around 3 months in advance

• 30% of our customers spend £20 - £30 per ticket when booking a show or event compared with 21% (£15 - £20) and 25% (£10 - £15).

• 43% of our customers typically spend £20 - £50 per order with 21% spending between £50 - £70.

• 67% of our audience come from outside PR4 and FY8

Data captured from our Box Office CRM.

Partnerships

This year, we’ve continued to build on exisiting and new relationships with local businesses including:

• Lowther Pavilion Cafe who served nearly 200 soups and sandwiches for our film screenings this year and catered several of our events.

• BrightPrint as our key print supplier based in Blackpool.

• Fylde Coast Radio as a key radio partner, featuring us daily on their breakfast show.

• Lytham Gin as the distillers of our Lowther Centenary Gin.

• National World as the company who manages our Google AdWords account and additional digital support

CHRISTMAS AT LOWTHER

12,000 people came to see this year’s pantomime, Cinderella, across 39 performances.

Produced by Paul Holman Associates, Cinderella became our most financially successful pantomime. The production saw a 50% increase on ticket sales when compared with pre-pandemic Box Office figures. This year’s pantomime also saw us:

• Reach an average decible count of 110dB per performance

• Over 700 costume changes by the Ugly Sisters across the run

• Hit over 300 sound and lighting cues per performance

• Sold over 500 LED wands to attendees

• 10,000 panto programmes printed and given out for free

Photo: Cinderella, 2022. Photography by Claire Griffiths.

“Absolutely brilliant pantomime, great venue and value for money. Will definitely be back!”

- Audience member

“I was very impressed with the quality of the show, friendliness of staff and the overall experience was fantastic.”

- Audience Member

“Absolutely brilliant, a total joy. We took our six year old granddaughter and what a fabulous afternoon we all had. Huge thank you so much to you all and Merry Christmas!”

- Audience Member

“An absolutely wonderful family experience. I had already been with a school party, but I loved it so much I brought my grandsons for their first panto.”

- Audience Member

Photo: Cinderella, 2022. Photography by Claire Griffiths.

OTHER NOTABLE EVENTS

This year, we welcomed a variety of original artists to perform on our stage from live music and performance to ballet and stand-up.

Particular highlights include:

• Jon Culshaw

• Beth Nielsen Chapman

• Francis Rossi

• Newton Faulkner

• The Undertones

• Susie Dent

• Omid Djalilli

• Albert Lee & Band

• Milton Jones

• & many more!

Les Dawson: Flying High

This December, we welcomed impressionist Jon Culshaw to our stage with his criticallyacclaimed Edinburgh Fringe Show, Les Dawson: Flying High. The show, performed on our stage over four nights sold out completely and recieved a standing ovation each night.

Whether it’s serious drama, romcoms or award-winning hits, NT Live gives our audience to catch live performances from some of Britain’s most exciting stages without the financial costs of travelling to London.

In September, we screened a one-off, sold-out performance of Prima Facie starring Jodie Comer.

The streamed performance:

• Sold 446 tickets

• Total revenue £5720

National Theatre Live: Prima Facie

Photo: Prima Facie, 2022. Photography by Helen Murray.

State Funeral Live Stream

Following the announcement of the State Funeral, we made the decision to live stream the event in our main auditorium for anyone in the community to come together for free.

One attendee told us he remembers watching the Queen’s Coronation as a child with his family, but he was the only family member left at the time of the funeral. So he was incredibly grateful that we opened up and gave him space to be with others.

The live stream of the funeral also gained us extensive press coverage on ITV and BBC.

“Thank you so much to everybody for streaming the Queen’s Funeral, opening your doors and making everybody feel special today - great service from all the Lowther Team. Thanks again.”

- Audience member, Google Review

Photo: Cinderella, 2022. Photography by Claire Griffiths.

LOWTHER CREATIVES

Over the last 12 months, we have continued to build on the work of our Lowther Creatives programme by offering young people and adults the chance to develop skills and meet new people.

We have worked with people of all ages on a number of projects including:

• 19 young people between the ages of 4 and 16 who are home schooled

• 35 people aged 14+ who took part in our weekly Technical Training course, where they worked with industry professionals

• Over 14 adults as part of our weekly adult drama workshops

• Over 26 young people aged of 8 - 16 who attended our sold out film schools with UCLan Lecturer and Filmmaker Ed Greenberg, and filmmaker Jane Gull. Plus, we supported 107 young people to achieve their Discover and Explore Arts Award.

We also provided a space for the Blackpool Grand Theatre to host a workshop in our venue for 37 Plays, a new national playwriting project led by the RSC and their partner theatres.

“It’s lovely as a parent to drop her off and know she is so excited to participate.”

- Parent, Junior Youth Theatre

“Thank you for such a lovely show, really enjoyed it. I love how imaginative they all are, full of confidence too, thank you for all the hard work and time you have put in for them.”

- Parent, Senior Youth Theatre

“Thank you so much. [Our daughter] has loved being involved and is looking forward to the new year.“

Senior YT - parent

COMMUNITY ARTS

In the last year, we have continued to provide a space for amateur dramatic groups and local performing arts schools to present their shows to friends and families. These include:

• Fylde Coast Players

•

St Annes Operatic Society

•

• Anonymous Players

• Rainbow Dance and Theatre School

• Junction 4 Productions

• NW1

• AKS

Blackpool & Fylde Light Operatic Company

Theatre School

Photo: Cinderella, 2022. Photography by Claire Griffiths.

IN THE GARDENS

Our award-winning gardens have welcomed thousands of people through our gates come rain or shine.

Lowther Gardens is home to:

• 250 plants and flowers

• 5 annual, free to enter outdoor festivals

• The first of two Padel Tennis courts in the North West, which opened this year

• A new mini-golf course set to open in the New Year

• A new avenue of trees leading towards the Shrimper

• Drive-in cinema

• A re-designed Rose Garden set to be completed in the New Year

In 2022, we built on the success of our 3 main outdoor festivals in 2021 by creating 2 additional ones to encourage families to explore our gardens and see what we have to offer.

The festivals included:

• Lowther’s Easter Surprise NEW

• Lowther’s Garden Festival NEW

• Lytham Ice Cream Festival

• Lytham World Food & Drink Festival

• Pumpkins in the Park

These festivals saw us:

• Work with over 40 external vendors from across the country

• Entertain over 80,000 visitors

• Reach over 300k people with our digital marketing

“Wow, what a summer of entertainment for the family!”

- Attendee, Google Review

“A great sunny weekend food & drink festival another success!”

- Attendee, Facebook comment

“Thank you for everything x”

- Vendor, Facebook comment

“I loved it. Great to take the kids for a day out.”

- Attendee, Google Review

“It was a fabulous event. As always, very well organised, thank you!”

- Attendee, Facebook comment

Summer Theatre in the Rose Garden

A selection of family plays were performed weekly in our Rose Garden throughout Summer.

The shows, produced by Pendle Productions, included:

• The Wizard of Oz

• Three Little Pigs

• Martha The Cat’s Big Adventure

• The Dragon Who Lost His Home

• The Secret Garden

• Pinocchio

“The outdoor shows were fantastic. Our 7 year old granddaughter and ourselves have enjoyed it immensley. Well done to the outdoor theatre cast and crew!”

- Audience member, Google Review

World Conservation Day

In collaboration with the Fylde Rangers, our Youth Theatre Director/Education Officer curated a handful of sessions aimed at families with young children. The Rangers offered ‘mini-beast hunting’ and craft activities whilst we provided a map-making session based on illustrating the imaginary history of our gardens.

Garden Guides

Run by our team of dedicated volunteers, the Garden Guides offered free tours around our historic gardens to provide information about the 250 plants and flowers and allow people to explore the award-winning planting done by our Gardening Team.

Bobby Ball Statue

The Bobby Ball Foundation and Lowther Gardens Trust unveiled the statue to the late comedia with a star-studded event.

As a result, we featured on BBC and ITV.

LOWTHER’S REACH

Over the past 12 months, we have:

• Produced and distributed over 50k brochures

• Had 1,266,815 visits to our website

• Reached 872,132 people on Facebook46.8% increase on last year (as of 23 Dec 22)

• Reached 24,604 people on Instagram134.9% increase on last year (as of 23 Dec 22)

• We sent 376,725 emails to our customer database which were opened 270,000 times • 3,000 people have visited our gardens remotely by accessing our online web cameras.

This year, we also launched our brand new TikTok account with some exciting plans for content throughout 2023.

Photo: Cinderella, 2022. Photography by Claire Griffiths.

Google AdWords

Earlier this year, we decided to swap our weekly insert in the Lytham St Annes Express and switch to a digital approach with Google AdWords.

Our Google AdWords are broken up into 3 key segments: Theatre, Car Park and Events.

Over the last few months, we’ve seen a return on investment with:

• £125,000 in total revenue

• 4,809 in total transations

• 67,488 total link clicks

• 171,850 total impressions

Our Google AdWords account is managed by National World.

AS A CHARITY

• Over the last 12 months, we’ve had more than £165,000 in donations towards our ambitious redevelopment plans.

• £3,000 donations were brought in via our Remember Me campaign, which sees visitors purchase and plant a bluebell in our gardens to commemorate loved ones.

• We laid the foundations for the new Community and Education Studio, which will provide an additional 150-seat performance and workshop space.

Thank you to everyone who has donated to the Lowther Pavilion - your support is incredibly important.

Data captured from our Box Office CRM.

Volunteers

Our friendly team of active volunteers are a key part of us as an organisation, providing support with events and workshops, marketing collateral distribution and Box Office cover.

• Over 150 volunteers donated around 15,000 hours of their time, providing vital support to us as an organisation.

• This time, donated by our incredible volunteers is worth over £160,000. We couldn’t do what we do without them. Thank you!

OUR VISION FOR THE FUTURE

Work has already begun on the first phase of our ambitious redevelopment campaign. This progress on our new 150-seat Community and Education Studio will allow us to continue to support the local community by offering even more theatre, live events and training opportunities. We are activity fundraising to deliver this project. If you’d like to know more about how you can support our plans to keep Lowther at the Heart of the Fylde community, please visit: lowtherpavilion.co.uk/support-us