Mill Mountain Theatre's Ginger Poole

Electronic Playbills, Programs: An Explanation

Yesterday, I noted the confusion many of us are undergoing with the electronic Playbills and game-day program for sports events. Ginger Poole of Mill Mountain Theatre had a lovely response, so I thought I'd share it here.

Here you go:

Happy to speak to this to offer some help and clarification.

MMT chose to go with a digital playbill this season to help eliminate touchpoints with our front-of-house due to COVID. This was a choice of safety and not a choice of saving expenses.

We have gone to scanning tickets versus tearing stubs and this was one more step to help curb the passing of paper between front-of-house volunteers and patrons. When our patrons purchase any ticket they are sent an email confirmation and reminders as their show date gets closer. In this email, we remind patrons of showtimes, parking suggestions, reminders that they may change their tickets at any time without any fees, and also a link to look at the playbills early if they choose. 

The QR codes go live the day of the first preview performance. Once you are at the theatre there are three ways to access the playbill: 

1) Try the QR Code provided. This is new for many of us and it may take a couple of tries. MMT even puts this on the QR code sheet. You may need to turn on the QR code feature on your phone and try again if you have not used this before. 

2) We give the guest a WiFi code in case your phone asks for this info. It is on the poster. 

3) The third way is to go to the MMT website, www.millmountain.org, and from your phone click on the logo from the show that you are seeing and simply click VIEW MARQUIS. This is found under the title of the show and the dates of the run of the show. This is a direct link that takes you to the digital Playbill. 

You can also access it from your home computer at any time after you have seen a show by going to the show ticket logo and clicking VIEW MARQUIS from your desktop, laptop, or tablet. 

We keep all of these on our website for archives. If a show has already closed and you want to access the playbill simply look up the show in the PAST PRODUCTIONS section. 

If someone does not have access to a phone we have simple one-pager versions with the basic info on it at the theatre if the patron needs it. 

There is also an awesome feature with the software of the digital playbills. It uses reverse black and white text and dims your phone if you need to read during the performance without disturbing those around you. It uses white text on a black background versus black text on the glowing white background. 

It is also very easy to detect if someone is taking photos or recording the show versus reading the digital playbill. We have folks that monitor from the back of the house to see if anyone is doing this without permission. We also have actors that tell the Assistant Stage Manager when they come off stage. They can see and tell when someone is recording. 

We do ask for folks to share that they are at MMT and to use our hashtag, #MeetMeAtMillMountain while they are at the theatre. This is a fantastic connector for us and we have been doing this for several years before trying the digital playbill for our 2021 season to help with COVID. 

We ask patrons to silence their phones during the performance, not turn them off. 

I hope this helps to understand more of the why we chose to do this for this season. We thought about this seriously before making the change, knowing that it would be new to many. We try to offer all of the ways to help our patrons and to provide the information that they are looking for on a production.