I loves me some Kickstarter. Since 2012 (starting with Amanda Palmer's groundbreaking campaign), I've backed more than 20 Kickstarter projects of all kinds. I love the thrill of participating in something new and exciting, and I especially love that even on a meager budget, I can help make something awesome happen. Most of the successful campaigns use stretch goals in some way or another. Now, for those of you new to the whole crowdfunding phenomenon, stretch goals are additional rewards, goodies, enhancements, or other opportunities added to the original project if the campaign exceeds its goal. One of my favorite stretch goals is the kind that offers all the backers an extra reward -- like when the Girl Genius team offers extra PDFs of Girl Genius comics to everyone who backed for $10 or more. Stretch goals encourage backers to keep pulling in friends and spreading the word even once the project has reached its goal.
But when I decided to launch my own Kickstarter campaign, I ran into a problem. The thing is that in live theatre, I don't create an electronic product that I can easily attach in an email to hundreds of backers. I really like Amanda Palmer's model of giving all her backers access to her work. She made sure that everyone who backed, even for the minimum of $1, received a download of the complete album. This means that she can have backers all around the world who can experience her work, even if she can't add their city to a tour just yet. I decided to take a leaf from her book and give every backer (from $1 on up) a free ticket to see Bare Bones Shakespeare's first show, but I wasn't all that sure about what to do for stretch goals. A funny gif? A video of me saying "Friends, Romans, Motherfuckers"? What? If I diverted the necessary resources to make a quality sound file or video, that means that the live theatre, the purpose of the project, has to come second to the backer rewards. Ultimately, I would rather do what I do, and do it well rather than do what someone else does, and do it poorly. That means that my stretch goals shouldn't focus primarily on a digital medium, since digital media isn't the purpose of this production company.
And there's another problem. Bare Bones Shakespeare is a brand-new company, and we don't really know yet what kind of demand there will be for our productions. Many new theatre companies only produce one, maybe two plays in their first year. I'd like to produce more than that, but I don't want to over-estimate or under-estimate the interest and support of my audience.
That's where the stretch goals come in. Instead of making the stretch goals into gimmicks and gift bags, we decided to question the whole assumption of what they can and can't be used for. By calling our project "Bare Bones Shakespeare 2015-2016 Season," we can fund the season while letting our audience decide how many productions we should have. If the project funds but doesn't reach any stretch goals, we'll still have enough for the basic setup costs and our first educational production, the school tour of Romeo and Juliet. If we reach any of our major stretch goals, then we'll add on more productions. We even came up with a list of which productions would get the green light first if we make some stretch goals but not others.
The benefit of using Kickstarter in this way is that if there's insufficient interest, there's no obligation -- we don't put a strain on our friends, families, and communities by committing to more projects than our fan base is willing to support. In fact, that's not just true of the stretch goals. Kickstarter uses the all-or-nothing crowdfunding model, which means that backers don't get charged a single penny unless the campaign is successful. The big, golden, sparkly plus is that if the campaign and any of the stretch goals ARE successful, we can rest assured that we have the resources we need to create the awesomeness that we're dying to bring to DFW.
But when I decided to launch my own Kickstarter campaign, I ran into a problem. The thing is that in live theatre, I don't create an electronic product that I can easily attach in an email to hundreds of backers. I really like Amanda Palmer's model of giving all her backers access to her work. She made sure that everyone who backed, even for the minimum of $1, received a download of the complete album. This means that she can have backers all around the world who can experience her work, even if she can't add their city to a tour just yet. I decided to take a leaf from her book and give every backer (from $1 on up) a free ticket to see Bare Bones Shakespeare's first show, but I wasn't all that sure about what to do for stretch goals. A funny gif? A video of me saying "Friends, Romans, Motherfuckers"? What? If I diverted the necessary resources to make a quality sound file or video, that means that the live theatre, the purpose of the project, has to come second to the backer rewards. Ultimately, I would rather do what I do, and do it well rather than do what someone else does, and do it poorly. That means that my stretch goals shouldn't focus primarily on a digital medium, since digital media isn't the purpose of this production company.
And there's another problem. Bare Bones Shakespeare is a brand-new company, and we don't really know yet what kind of demand there will be for our productions. Many new theatre companies only produce one, maybe two plays in their first year. I'd like to produce more than that, but I don't want to over-estimate or under-estimate the interest and support of my audience.
That's where the stretch goals come in. Instead of making the stretch goals into gimmicks and gift bags, we decided to question the whole assumption of what they can and can't be used for. By calling our project "Bare Bones Shakespeare 2015-2016 Season," we can fund the season while letting our audience decide how many productions we should have. If the project funds but doesn't reach any stretch goals, we'll still have enough for the basic setup costs and our first educational production, the school tour of Romeo and Juliet. If we reach any of our major stretch goals, then we'll add on more productions. We even came up with a list of which productions would get the green light first if we make some stretch goals but not others.
The benefit of using Kickstarter in this way is that if there's insufficient interest, there's no obligation -- we don't put a strain on our friends, families, and communities by committing to more projects than our fan base is willing to support. In fact, that's not just true of the stretch goals. Kickstarter uses the all-or-nothing crowdfunding model, which means that backers don't get charged a single penny unless the campaign is successful. The big, golden, sparkly plus is that if the campaign and any of the stretch goals ARE successful, we can rest assured that we have the resources we need to create the awesomeness that we're dying to bring to DFW.