Friday 3 February 2012

Sitcom Mission gets 400 entries

The latest season of The Sitcom Mission (the show that grew out of The Sitcom Trials and is now sponsored by Hat Trick) made a significant change in its entry policy, deciding to charge entrants to submit a script.


Declan Hill, Kev F Sutherland and Simon Wright, winning the Fringe Report Award for Best Enourager of Talent for The Sitcom Trials in 2008. Declan and Simon went on to produce The Sitcom Mission

Having had around 1200 entries last year, this was a pragmatic move to both reduce less serious entries and to help maintain the running of the show. Previously they were having to read a thousand scripts for free, with the only income for the operation coming from the door takings of the live events and for the occasional workshops they run. This year there was an earlybird fee of £10 or a last minute fee of £15 to enter a script.

Having always resisted such a move for The Sitcom Trials, I was curious to see what the result would be. Would it turn out that wannabe writers only want to submit scripts for free, or would they turn out in just as great force as before? The answer is that they received just under 400 entries.

Given that the prize on offer from Hat Trick is worth £5000, this would suggest there's more money to be made running a sitcom competition than entering it!

The Sitcom Trials remains free to enter, and offers no big-TV-company prize to the winner. Yet. (Currently the new Trials season has received... 1 entry



Next Sitcom Trials show March 30, Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol
Script deadline Feb 29 - enter here.

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