HIYA PALS

With ten years of experience in communications, audience development, digital work, events, marketing, production and social media across charities and non-profit organisations in Scotland, - and working in the Edinburgh Fringe and beyond - my career has been shaped by the incredible communities and creatives I have had the joy to work alongside. My working ethos is built around sharing, openness and respect.

In addition to long (great!) days spent working on festivals and events, I also have experience and interest in:

  • Live performance: LGBTQ+ work, contemporary circus, contemporary dance and solo works, physical theatre, puppetry, contemporary music, and occasionally folk music

  • Film: LGBTQ+ work, artist’s moving image

  • Visual Art

  • Telling the stories of objects in museum and gallery collections

A WEE NOTE

I’m currently unable to use Meta advertising from my own accounts. It was a long and annoying process to find out why my account was restricted, but it turns out that using the term '“LGBTQ+” on my website was flagged in Google Tags Manager, and therefore flagged on my Meta account integration.

As an LGBTQ+ identifying person, I’m very annoyed. I’ve managed to find workarounds with organisations.

PAST

  • Marketing Coordinator, Festival and City

  • Digital and Marketing Lead

    May 2024 - October 2025

    Media buying, print handling and creative development for a portfolio of beautiful works as part of Storytelling PR, including the Edinburgh Fringe 2025 runs of The Genesis, The Bacchae, Red Like Fruit, A Teen Odyssey, Auntie Empire, Michael  Elsener: How to Live in Paradise; in addition to the inaugural São Paulo Showcase with its six shows, working in partnership with the São Paulo State Government. The 12 productions I was directly responsible for marketing had a joint campaign budget of £50k, and made a total of £194.4k gross box office revenue.

  • Festival Marketing Manager

    October 2024 - February 2025

    For Manipulate Festival's 18th edition, I achieved 115% of the sales target for events and 121% of the sales target for workshops. In this role, I was responsible for campaign management, box office management, supporting Tao-Anas Le Thanh to document live work, audience development and social media. This included work on World Premieres - supporting producers and marketeers at Scottish Ensemble and Blind Summit to develop materials for The Law of Gravity, and Groupwork, for When Prophecy Fails.

  • Marketing Coordinator

    April - September 2024

    Supporting the coordination of marketing for films within the slate of the 77th edition of Edinburgh International Film Festival, which included a host of exciting World Premieres, including Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands and the UK Premieres of The Outrun, Alien: Romulus and The Substance. This involved building a new website with developers peakfifteen, working to build the festival’s box office with EdFringe and 180 Box Office, editing the festival’s guide and digital outputs with Fourth Wall Studio and working across Edinburgh and wider Scotland to continue the festival’s commitments to audience development.

  • Digital Content Associate

    September 2023 - March 2024

    Back-filling for the role of Digital Content Manager (October 2023 - mid February 2024), I looked after a number of content plans and digital projects for National Museums Scotland across its five sites. This involved producing for multimedia projects across departments and for temporary exhibitions including Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Cold War Scotland, in addition to the day-to-day management of the organisation’s website and social media channels

  • Marketing Coordinator

    May - August 2023

    Leading on the creative and branding for the festival alongside artworker Sungaze Studio, I was responsible for putting together the annual brochure, looking after the Festival’s website and ensuring the customer journey from front end to box office was smooth and easy. Working with the Marketing Manager and PR agency, I was also responsible for planning, preparing and suggesting stories and content for social and print media.

  • Marketing Associate

    June - August 2023 | December 2021 - October 2022

    Working on the UK premiere and Fringe performances of the stage play Who Killed My Father, I developed and implemented the creative look and treatment for the marketing materials of the piece. In addition to commissioning graphic design, photography and print production, I monitored the relationship with the UK rights holders of the work and looked after audience development and social media for the production.

  • Marketing and Communications Manager

    January 2022 - March 2023

    With a budget responsibility of £70k, I managed three assistants and maintained relationships with the festival’s web developer and design agency, as well as two PR agents. I oversaw relationships with festival sponsors and supported opening events, in addition to ad buying and commissioning/giving final pass to photography, video and sound production. I also piloted a development programme for emerging writers in partnership with The Skinny, and developed a new IPA collaboration (Fire Island 0.5% IPA) with Waverley Care and Bellfield Brewery.

  • Marketing Officer

    September 2019 - January 2022

    Working across five arts venues and two festivals to promote activity across different creative mediums, my role was focused on audience development, communications and PR. A highlight from this experience was working with the production team at ITV’s This Morning to surprise a Lerwick resident who was the most northerly caller to The Silver Line, a support service for older people who may face loneliness.

  • Marketing Support

    June 2020 - January 2021

    Assisted Edinburgh-based group Lyra to support children and young people in the hybrid arts programme Lyra Goes Digital during the Covid-19 Pandemic, with content creation and social media support.

  • Marketing Officer

    March - September 2019

    Working across Centre for the Moving Image (CMI) Scotland - Filmhouse Edinburgh, Belmont Filmhouse and Edinburgh International Film Festival - I looked after the creation of social and web content, in addition to monitoring sales reports and implementing changes to the sales strategy through audience development.

  • Digital Marketing Associate

    June 2018 - February 2019

    Looked after digital output for Scotland’s national contemporary dance company, including content creation, web maintenance and PPC content. The role also involved copywriting for editorials, listings, newsletters and web.

  • Marketing Officer

    November 2017 - January 2019

    With a remit of 4 theatres and 8 museums, I looked after campaigns for commercial live theatre and exhibitions. This included two seasons of pantomime (with campaign budgets of £15k per season) and touring work from the likes of Ballet Lorent and National Theatre of Scotland.

Further work history for Fife Contemporary, Forth Pilgrim, Fife Council, voluntary experience and education can be found on LinkedIn.

Graham Webster chases Polar the dog in a wetsuit at the beach by Newhaven.

Image: Chasing Polar the dog around on Wardie Bay beach in a wetsuit, during a photocall I organised for Copenhagen Collective’s The Genesis. at Storytelling PR. Check out the shoot. Credit: Agnes Wang.

  • Analytics (data retrieval and reporting): Audience Finder, Google Analytics, Purple 7, Site Improve

    Box Offices CRM (maintenance and UX): Art Tickets, Citizen Ticket, Eventbrite,  Monad, Spektrix, Tessitura

    Social CMS (maintenance and content management): Hootsuite, Sprout, Marketo, Meta Business Suite

    Web CMS (maintenance and content management): Craft, Drupal, Squarespace, Umbraco, Weebly, WordPress

    Apps (maintenance and content management): Smartify, Bloomberg Connects

    Email CMS (maintenance and content management): Campaign Monitor, DotDigital, Mailchimp

    CRM (maintenance and management): Filmchief, Eventival, Highrise, Raiser’s Edge, Patronbase

    E-commerce CMS and tools (maintenance and content management): Shopify, SumUp, Zettle

    Creative tools: InDesign, PremierePro, Illustrator, otter.ai, Adobe Express

    UX (planning): Figma/Figjam

    Streaming and social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, Link.tree, LinkedIn, SoundCloud, TikTok, Twitch, Whereby, YouTube, X, Zoom

LET’S GET TAE WORK

Interested in working together? Drop me a message and we can get a coffee, walk or Zoom in the diary.