Image Is Everything… Publicity & Communications

D’arcy is in her 2nd year studying BA Fine Art at the University of Leeds

I joined Backstage in first year with zero knowledge of how to do any Backstage activities. I was mainly interested by set building and design but never discovered a niche like so many Backstage members, be they lampies, soundies, or stageaholics. I found that what I loved most about Backstage was just how darn photogenic we are as a society, all smoke and mirrors and cool-looking equipment; I loved to take pictures of everyone in action, or of the stage set up ready for a show (as a fine art student I’m all about that a e s t h e t i c). When it came to applications for the new Backstage Committee I felt that my calling was Publicity and Communications Secretary (P&C) and I managed to get the role for 2016/17!

“With these platforms I am tasked with keeping them up to date with all the activities that Backstage get up to such as building shows, working on shows, training and most importantly: socials (to maintain our image as a work-hard play-hard kind of society).”

As P&C I am in charge of maintaining and updating all the Backstage social media accounts, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and sometimes the Backstage Website, although I generally update the Backstage Blog and leave the complicated stuff up to the clever coders as I can’t tell my HTML from my CSS. With these platforms I am tasked with keeping them up to date with all the activities that Backstage get up to such as building shows, working on shows, training and most importantly: socials (to maintain our image as a work-hard play-hard kind of society). There is always something going on to document and share with our audience. I generally try to keep posts entertaining and engaging, testing out different ways to display photos and videos; editing clips together to create little tasters of some of the shows that we work on, collages, and GIFs are just some examples of the kind of content I create. Backstage Society really is a ‘brand’ and I like to keep things uniform with a regular house-style each time, using similar colours and always the Backstage font. As well as social media, P&C also designs and writes the big e-newsletters, creates e-posters and banners when needed, and tries to uphold supportive relationships with the societies that we work with through mutual promotion and publicity. As I am the ‘creative’ one on committee I also often do anything deemed artistic that is required such as designing the committee hoodies or creating image-posts for events managed by others on committee that need an extra boost to catch everyone’s attention.

“Whilst we have fun as friends, Backstage committee is quite a professional group and you will really gain some important transferable skills for the future…”

Within Backstage committee we take our roles quite seriously (most of the time). Weekly meetings can be intense as we discuss updates and future plans, make decisions about show roles, decisions about technical things such as investments in equipment for the society. This is just a small portion of the activities that we do as a team but I am sure that one of the other committee members has gone into more detail than me. Whilst we have fun as friends, Backstage committee is quite a professional group and you will really gain some important transferable skills for the future such as participating in formally organised meetings, team working, and generally learning how an organisation is run.

I hope that I have given you all enough information about my role on committee and that some of you will apply to keep P&C role going strong! Send me an email at publicity@luubackstage.com if you have any further questions. Good luck <3

By D'arcy Darilmaz

Posted on 18th March 2017