Today we’ve been doing some SWOT analysis for Hope in Hell Theatre. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, and is a way to think about the things you’ve got going for you (S and O), and the potential hazards (W and T). Strengths and Weaknesses are internal things, or things you can affect, and Opportunities and Hazards are external factors.
Things we learnt from doing this:
- Our weaknesses and threats tend to be financial – our budgets work on very tight profit margins, and assume no paid staff, which is problematic in many ways!
- Low audience engagement is both a weakness – we haven’t developed this yet – and a threat – perhaps Sheffield audiences are generally disengaged? But we can deal with the weakness, and we truly believe that consistently giving the opportunity to engage with theatre will encourage engagement over time
- Sheffield is a perfect city for this theatre! With low building rents, low business rates, and a really supportive council, there’s opportunity galore!
The SWOT analysis can be hard to face up to, but there’s more in the green than the red!