Film / News
Slapstick in unexpected publicity boost
Posters for this month’s Slapstick festival are currently occupying a prime position at the London end of the M4. If Slapstick had to pay for these sites, they’d cost in excess of £75,000. But the fest has got them for free as a result of an unlikely mix-up.
It seems that Storm, the agency responsible for the poster campaign, somehow confused this low-budget silent film festival with an expensive promotion for masked Iowa heavy metal band Slipknot. Hey – Slapstick/Slipknot, it’s an easy mistake to make. Especially as Slipknot boast a character known as The Clown. As a result, Slapstick’s posters were sent to, erm, Newcastle.
Still, all’s well that ends well, as Storm have offered handsome compensation in the form of the M4 sites, plus some rotating ads near the Chiswick roundabout. It’s estimated that these will have been seen by more than a million commuters by the time they come down.
The Slapstick festival runs from Jan 22-25 and features such diverse connoisseurs of silent comedy as Stephen Fry, Chris Addison, Shappi Khorsandi, Victoria Wood, Rick Wakeman, Griff Rhys Jones, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.
For more details, see our feature here.
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