How to Make Your Theatre’s Summer Camp Stand Out to Parents

Sporting camps. Sleepaway experiences. Outdoor recreation. Cheerleading and dance. Educational offerings. It’s so, so clear: The summer camp industry is a saturated market. Suppose you’re planning to create summer programming and want to maximize your attendance. In that case, you’ll need to find ways to make your specific offerings unique and appealing – not only to the campers themselves, but to the ones signing them up: their parents or guardians! 

On The Stage presents just a few ways to ensure your summer camp stands out from the crowd and appeals to discerning parents, boosting your attendance and creating a successful experience all around. 

How to Make Your Summer Camp Offerings Stand Out

Do Your Research.

The best way to ensure your camp stands out from the rest is to study your competition thoroughly and answer this singular question: “What makes my camp different?” There are a thousand ways to market your offerings, but by emphasizing what you have and others don’t, you’re creating an edge and giving parents a reason to land on your camp instead of others like it. A few ways to differentiate yourself from other camps like yours include:

• Offering a competitive or flexible pricing structure for greater accessibility.  
• Presenting unique themes that may offer broader appeal than competitors.
• Touting special guests or experts that other camps won’t have.
• Emphasizing your top-notch educational opportunities. 
• Highlighting performance opportunities for campers of all ages.
• Ensuring maximum inclusivity by offering accommodations for those with physical or mental disabilities; all should be welcome at your camp!
  

Make Registration Easy.

A busy parent, even a discerning one, does not want to sit down for an hour to deal with a complicated camp sign-up process. In fact, you may lose potential campers if your sign-up process is too lengthy. Instead, make sure your registration process is streamlined, simple, and informative. 

Your best bet for making this happen? Partnering with a software (ahem, like On The Stage’s) that can take care of most of the logistical work for you so you can focus on prepping for camp. With the right partner, you can streamline:

• The registration process from top to bottom, including health forms, camper info, etc. 
• The payment portal 
• Your camp website and all its relevant information and marketing materials 
• Enrollment tracking to keep an eye on your numbers 
• And so much more!

Present Social Proof.

If no one has anything to say about your theatre or your camp offerings, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a parent willing to send their kid off to it without supervision. That said, offering your potential campers and their parents social proof of the validity and entertainment value of your camp is paramount in attracting more campers.

Utilizing user-generated content is an excellent way to kick off this process. A few ways to utilize UGC in this context include:

• Sharing testimonials and reviews from happy parents and campers
• Reposting social media videos by your campers or their parents from last year 
• Reposting photos posted by your campers or their parents from last year 
• Retweeting any positive commentary from campers themselves from last year, or from return campers excited to come back 

Additionally, you can post your behind-the-scenes content of camp preparations, and encourage word-of-mouth advertising from return campers/parents to help spread the word about how great your programming truly is. 

Emphasize Convenience.

Much like the convenience of having a streamlined registration process, you should also focus on general convenience for parents and their busy schedules. After all, work doesn’t stop for adults in the summer, so offering a stress-free childcare situation will surely help you seal the deal on more campers. A couple of ideas to emphasize convenience for parents include:

• Presenting flexible scheduling – Meaning no hard-and-fast drop-off times or more leeway for working parents to get their kids to your camp when they’re able to.
• Offering extended care options – Perhaps your camp runs from 9 to 4, but a parent works 8 to 5. Present extended care options for an additional price so that parents are more likely to send their kids to your camp due to the lack of organizational stress. Additionally, you’re able to make additional income from your camp. Win-win! 

Tout Safety and Organization.

The last thing you want to do in your marketing efforts for your camp is to appear unprofessional, unsafe, or disorganized –  nothing will make potential campers’ parents run away faster! That’s why taking the time to emphasize your professionalism and organization is important. A few ways to do so include:

• Introducing your camp instructors and listing their qualifications on your camp website 
• Confirming that your team members are properly vetted with the necessary background checks
• Mentioning any safety procedures/protocols you have in place in case of emergencies 
• Listing your instructor to camper ratios – ensuring no camper gets lost in the shuffle, or you are under-equipped to deal with a large portion of campers 
• Offering an outline of camp activities/offerings and a set schedule, so parents know what their kids are doing, when they’re doing it 

Offer Financial Incentives.

Parents love lots of things – organization, convenience, safety for their children – but they also love saving money when the situation allows. This is why offering a variety of financial incentives for your campers can help raise your enrollment numbers drastically. A few ideas include:

• Early-bird perks – To help get your enrollment numbers off the ground at the start, offer early-bird discounts to the first 100 (or whatever number makes the most sense for you!) campers that sign up for your programming. 
• Referral discounts – Let’s reward word-of-mouth advertising and loyalty! Referral discounts are the perfect way to thank consistent campers and bring new theatre lovers into the fold.
• Family discounts – Consider offering discounts for every member of a family that attends your camp. For example, 5% off for two campers from the same family, 10% off for three campers from the same family, etc. 
• Flash sales – If you want to create a sense of urgency and encourage parents to “strike while the iron’s hot,” offer time-bound discounts that can only be utilized for a few hours or days. If any parent is on the fence about signing their kid up, a discount may help tip them over the edge! 
• Specific promo codes – If there are specific demographics (or even people) you want to target for your camp, offer them unique promo codes for individualized discounts. 

Highlight the Positives of Theatre and Arts Education.

As we said before, the ‘camp’ industry is a heavily saturated market. Parents may be unsure of what type of camp they should be sending their kids to, and might be looking for any guidance they can get. A great way to appeal to these parents is by highlighting just how important arts education is to students. After all, theatre and the arts help kids with: 

• General creativity
• Empathy for people from all walks of life
• Enhanced critical thinking 
• Enhanced memory skills
• Improved academic performance 
• Increased civic engagement 
• Increased cultural awareness
• And so much more! 

Let’s be clear – a lot of camps cannot tout half this range of benefits, so make sure you’re promoting just how great theatre camp can be!

How On The Stage Can Help

Whether you need help streamlining your registration, creating specific promo codes for your target demographics, increasing camp enrollment, marketing your offerings, updating your theatre’s website, or just elevating your theatre camp’s experience for all involved, let On The Stage help.

On The Stage empowers your organization with the best way to sell tickets and manage box office, marketing, and fundraising activities in one robust ticketing platform – all for free. If you’re ready to get started, book a personalized demo today.