Fertile Ground 2012

 

Festival Overview

 

The 2012 Fertile Ground, Portland’s Festival of New Work is  January 19 -29. Fertile Ground is a program of the Portland Area Theatre Alliance www.patagreenroom.org, a non-profit, volunteer organization.

 

Fertile Ground is a non-juried festival of world premiere works in a variety of artistic genres.  It features world premiere projects from the Portland creative community, from fully staged world premiere works of theater to experimental and ensemble-driven work, workshops productions, readings, and many other performance events and collaborations including dance, music, comedy, visual art. Each participant produces their own event, with Fertile Ground as an umbrella of publicity, marketing and consulting support.

 

Unlike a typical fringe festival, Fertile Ground’s focus is offering the finest work of our local theater and dance companies, as well as multi-disciplinary artists.  This ensures that the artistic and financial benefits of the festival stay in Portland, while the festival showcases what Portland ‘s creative community has to offer far beyond.  Where other new works festivals are curated by one organization and typically feature a string of staged readings, Fertile Ground opens the door to all creative voices.  In a concentrated, 10-day timeframe, audiences can choose from a vast depth and breadth of works at all different stages in the creative process.  For these reasons, Fertile Ground is nationally unique, providing a new model for creating and publicizing new work that will be of substantive value to the national theater, dance and arts conversation.

 

Now entering its fourth year, Fertile Ground has established itself as a vibrant 10-day multi-arts festival equally important to artists and Arts lovers in Portland. Each year brings new creative works from Portland, to Portland and beyond.

 

 

 

Participation Qualifications

 

To participate in the festival, fully staged productions must be World Premieres, defined as not having had a fully staged production in another venue in its current form regionally or nationally.

 

Staged readings and workshops of new plays in development may participate as long as the most recent draft being presented has not been staged for public viewing before.

 

Fertile Ground welcomes work generated non-traditionally, collaboratively, and using new techniques and methods, and work that transcend the boundaries of traditional theater, dance or other artistic models.

 

New adaptations of established literary works are welcome as long as this production constitutes an entirely new script and not a revision or edition of an earlier adaptation of the work.

 

 

Registration Fees

 

$100 - for an Individual Artist producer with PATA Membership

$100 - for a Producing Company with PATA Membership

$125 - for an Individual Artist producer without PATA Membership*

$150 - for a Producing Company without PATA Membership*

 

*includes PATA membership enrollment

 

Registration Fee deadline is OCTOBER 1. After October 1 a $20 late fee will be charged. Registration ends October 20.

 

 

Event Information Submission

 

All event information and photos/logo/image must be submitted in final form NO LATER THAN October 15, 2011. That information includes project name, confirmed venue, dates, times, 200 word description, hi-res pdf or jpeg for press or marketing.

 

Any information submitted after November 1, 2011 is not guaranteed to print in the Festival Guide.  Updates can be made on the website.

 

 

 

How the Festival Participant-Fertile Ground Partnership works

 

Festival participants independently produce their own events. Fertile Ground can be a valuable producer resource and can offer support. The primary function of the Festival is to promote and market all participants as a part of this Portland Festival. Fertile Ground Festival is not legally liable in any way for your event.

 

Ticketing

Producers retain 100% of all subscription and single ticket revenue generated.

 

Festival Passes

 

Festival Passes are offered to the public, this revenue is that funds Fertile Ground, just like a ticket sale to a producer.  Festival Passes are $50.  A Festival Pass is good for all participating Festival Performances and grants admittance to all Festival events.  Passes are sold through the Fertile Ground website, the participating producers and other partner organizations. Our ticketing service provides a drop down menu with each pass sale. Buyers can select a producer to which they’d like to direct $15 of their purchase. Organizations can sell passes via the Fertile Ground website directing their patrons to select them.

 

 

Festival Participant Benefits & Collateral

 

Festival Guide Booklet (Circulation  5,000)

 

- 200 word show description listing including press photo or marketing image, venue information, dates, times, genre ( ALL CONTENT DUE NLT October 15)

- Comprehensive calendar placement

- Citywide Distribution via distributor, producers, lobby/event marketing tables.

 

Festival Website

 

- listing, description, photo/image, link to producing site.

 

Media Relations

- inclusion in Festival press materials distributed to local, regional and national          media

-  media coverage development for Festival coverage in print, web, radio, TV  outlets

 

Social Media – support via Twitter, Facebook, Blog.

 

Marketing Outreach – as opportunities develop, examples: events, community partners,  restaurant partners

 

Ticketing Support – Fertile Ground partners with Box Office Tickets, who generates the   online Festival calendar and sells Festival Passes.

 

Workshops – Fertile Ground offers workshops in the months leading up to Fertile  Ground on subjects like Marketing, PR, Media Relations, Social Media, using

Box Office Tickets/Passes and more.

 

General Support – Fertile Ground has a volunteer staff to support you, answer your  questions and be helping hand to your experience as a producer. Look at the  “Contact” page on the website to direct your inquiry.

 

 

Festival Participant Requirements

 

Ticketing

- Honor all Festival Pass tickets per performance (pending availability) during the 10-day

span of the festival.

NOTE:  Producers can set a limit on Festival Pass holders you will honor per show, as long as you make those seats available on a first come, first served basis on the day of the performance and make every effort to accommodate when possible.

- Honor comp requests from all visiting Artistic Leaders.

- Honor media comp requests via Fertile Ground staff.

 

Festival Promotion

- Include the Fertile Ground Festival logo on all ads and printed material for the production.

- Include a descriptive sentence and web url for the festival in all media releases related to the participating production. Individual producer media releases strongly suggested.

- Include a description of the festival and a link on your website to the Fertile Ground website www.fertilegroundpdx.org.

- Promote your show in conjunction with Fertile Ground to your mailing or e-mailing list.

- Promote Festival Passes. They are $50 and there is a drop-down menu where youru patrons can select that $20 of their pass fee go directly to YOU.

- Sell, or allow Festival staff to sell, Festival Passes and merchandise to patrons

- in the lobby.

- Distribute Festival Guides in your lobby December – January.

- Provide two volunteers for advance sales of festival passes and Festival promotion in December and January.

- Provide the Festival with an ASCII tab-delimited list of contact info for your 20/2011

- subscribers and/or single ticket buyers for use on a festival postcard mailing.

 

Communications

- Meet or precede all Festival Deadlines.

- Provide complete, accurate information in the format requested.