How Pozible helped First Dog get on stage
In this guest post, Andrew Marlton, the cartoonist behind Crikey’s First Dog On The Moon, shares how he has used crowd funding platform Pozible, and his Twitter following, to rally his audience to support his off-page activities.
Last year I was asked to install an art installation in a public exhibition space in Melbourne. I needed something that would be consistent with my ongoing creative practise as a Marsupial based cartoonist. Obviously the answer was clocks.
Customisable clocks ordered from the internet. Perfect. I was simply too time poor to be able to craft something from scratch, so instead I had someone else make them for me all I had to do was order them and install them.
That was going to cost money. And you wouldn’t believe how much fake grass costs!
One of our fastest funded projects EVER.
Massive and deserved success to FDOTM/Andrew.
Worth noting that it’s not just about the size of your network, but how engaged and invested in you they are, that can play a critical part in running a successful crowdfunding campaign. Just ‘having the numbers’ won’t do it alone, even though it certainly helps.
FDOTM’s distinctively quick success reflects how *invested and engaged* he and his twitter followers are with one another, and how valued he is in the Twitterverse.
Well played, AM.
I congratulate him on his success but after a sold out Melbourne Fringe season where extra shows were put on it was obvious there was demand for First Dog’s work. I suspect he could have easily made the money on ticket sales or indeed opening a store online selling these products. Regardless he could have just saved the money made in the Melbourne Fringe and then not had to pay Pozzible 5%. He could have simply used a service like the excellent Trybooking to pre sell tickets and collect the funds instantly. That way if he didn’t reach his goal he’d still have some money in the bank. Low budget theatre is not really expensive to put on. I understand that some projects need money upfront in order to be made but I hope people don’t stop making interesting art and theatre if they fail to get enough people to pre-buy. I can’t but perceive a lot of this stuff as looking like dressed up begging. I know it’s not and I can understand why people might not want to go into debt or risk money but I’d rather be an audience member than a patron.
Love, love, love First Dog’s Tweets and his inventiveness. I suspect I would follow him on Twitter even if he wasn’t a National Treasure (and he must be because he Tweeted that he is).
Seriously though this is an excellent example of how social media can help drive a fabulous artistic event.
If only First Dog would do something for us art and comedy starved persons in Sydney.
Come to Sydney First Dog, please!
Saw both his presentations at Mumbrella 360 last year and the year before, and he was terrific on both occasions.
surely you can pay for your own stuff rather than ask others? A bit arrogant
I pay money where is tea towel
Great to see Mumbrella is now supporting autoplay videos!
This video autoplayed – yuck!
Autoplay — what are you thinking Mumbrella?
EPIC FAIL!
Hi B,
That video doesn’t come from our player. Unfortunately it’s embedded from Vimeo and set to autoplay. Our only other option would be to remove it.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella