Chris Harper - Marketing Director

Marketing Director of the National Theatre Chris Harper is passionate about the theatre. This is a good thing as he manages a staff of nine responsible for promoting the work of the National itself, its three theatres, restaurant, car park, and bookshop. He takes a blunt view of his role. “Basically,” he says, “I’m responsible for putting bums on seats.” This he does by all the means at his disposal: posters, advertising, mail shots, website, even the programme.

With a major production such as His Dark Materials he was conscious that he faced a huge challenge with two ambitious three-hour productions to sell. His strategy was to price the seats so that families could afford to come, and to reach out to the huge number of fans of the Philip Pullman trilogy. His aim was to capitalise on their loyalty and to win them over. The proof of the pudding is that both shows sold out before they opened. Even so Chris continued to check the box office during the run to make sure the right audience was coming, always asking: have the school discounts worked, are enough families taking seats?

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