The Story Ship - Franchise

The Story Ship

The Story Ship is a Franchise program that gives people interested in theater the opportunity to own and operate their own children's theatrical production company. Offering innovative educational scripted performances and workshops, The Story Ship programs are technology driven and truly unique in the industry.

Interactive Animated Performances

Featuring interactive animation, comedy theater, magic, and music, the Story Ship's performances have been developed over 10 years and presented all over the Eastern United States in thousands of performances. The sets include a giant video projection system that brings the animation to life. The Story Ship Actor and the audience interact with the animation as the stories unfold. With a wonderful array of magic tricks and comedy skits, the audience is drawn away from the animation into live action interactive theater. There are two versions of each show one (50 minutes) for presenters that need a larger and longer show and one (30 minutes) for other venues such as festivals or birthdays looking for a more concise easy to setup and breakdown performance. Since all of the shows require only one actor, it is much easier to be profitable when the rest of the cast is animated.

Workshops

The Story Ship's audio workshops were created for kids eight and above to introduce the recording arts and further develop their writing and reading skills. When combining today's digital audio technology with the uninhibited creative drive of children, extraordinary things happen. And parents and teachers want to share them with every one they know! So these workshops become great fund-raisers and moneymakers. These workshops are perfect for After School Programs. Kids work with a Story Ship Artist to create an Audio CD of their own stories, sound effects and music. The final product is a digitally mastered Audio CD created by the children. This is a great way for kids to learn and practice writing, reading and acting skills while discovering facts about the science of sound!

A Call To Adventure...

There are plenty of kids waiting... As a Story Ship franchisee, you have several things going for you. One is the fact that schools, churches, daycare centers, and other entities need creative ways to instruct, entertain, and challenge children. Another is the willingness of parents to spend virtually unlimited amounts of money when the well being of their kids is involved. Yet another is the growing population of youngsters and the increasing affluence of their families. Over 4 million children are born each year in the United States.

In-Depth Training

As a franchisee you'll get:
Two Weeks at The Story Ship Headquarters
Two weeks at The Story Ship Headquarters covering every aspect of giving a top-notch performance and workshops including rehearsing with mock and real performances, preparing the stage, selecting costume, using animation, performing the magic, manipulating the puppets and controlling the audience.

You'll also get in depth explanations on how to use The Story Ship management software so you can minimize time spent in the office and have more fun out in the field performing.

All of this is covered in depth with a 420+ page manual and a complete video training series now available online and given to you as a DVD set. You'll also get…

Three days at your home territory
Your Story Ship training specialist will come to your location and help you to:

• Refine your marketing strategies and tailor your advertising program to meet the needs of your community.
• Setup your Grand Debut performance and other showcases to get the word out and quickly book engagements.
• Develop your client list to continually expand your client base.

Comprehensive Support
When the training is over you'll have...

General Support

• THE STORY SHIP MANUAL - A comprehensive 400+ page manual detailing every aspect of the business.
• DVD TRAINING VIDEOS - A set of DVD training videos showing you how to do performances, workshops, and day to day management in detail.
• INTRANET SITE - Access to the Story Ship Intranet site where you will find training videos, forums to share ideas and methods with other Franchisees and more.
• SUPPORT HOTLINE - A support hotline where you can get answers to questions and solutions to problems quickly.

Marketing Support

• To start your Story Ship franchise, you'll employ a six-step program designed to obtain bookings quickly.
• You'll be assisted in creating your own interactive Website that tells your story to prospective clients—and allows them to see performance videos.
• You'll learn how to identify prospective organizations and get to the right person in those organizations.
• You'll have business cards, convention banners and brochure templates ready to customize.
• You'll be given a direct mail program that you can use to get the attention of the right school officials and other prospective clients.
• You'll identify booking conferences and be guided through how to sell your services.
• You'll learn the art of making telephone and personal presentations to prospects.
• And finally, you'll be shown how to set up and stage free showcase performances as part of your Grand Debut.

In addition, you'll receive a consolidated vendors resource guide for all equipment, costumes, magic tricks, props, and software.

It's all there—everything you'll need to stage professional performances and workshops and everything you'll need to run a business, whether or not you have business experience. Come see how much fun you can have at one of our Discovery Day Performances!