ALAIN AIRTH
In 2021, Alain Airth launched Wondrous City Marketing to use his extensive knowledge and experience to deliver sales-driven strategies to maximise attendance and revenue for his live theatre clients.
Alain has over 25 years’ experience marketing west end shows, many of which have gone onto achieve global success.
He has held key positions with major west-end production companies, global entertainment advertising agencies and some of the UK’s largest theatres.
Prior to launching Wondrous City Marketing, Alain was Managing Director of AKA, the largest arts and entertainment agency in the UK and featured in the Kingston Smith annual survey of the Top 50 UK advertising agencies.
AKA’s strong theatrical client base included, amongst others, the RSC, National Theatre, Cameron Mackintosh Limited, The Really Useful Group, Stage Entertainment, Sonia Freidman Productions, The Royal Opera House and Sadler’s Wells.
During Alain’s time as Managing Director, AKA’s client base continued its expansion into UK arts and culture, including English Heritage, Historic Royal Palaces, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Chester & Edinburgh Zoos and The View from the Shard.
Alain began his career in theatre management at the Edinburgh Playhouse, the UK’s largest theatre. He subsequently developed marketing campaigns at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow. During a successful run of West Side Story at the King’s Theatre, its producer, André Ptaszynski, invited Alain to join his company in London, Pola Jones, as its Marketing Manager. During the next 3 years , Alain oversaw west end campaigns for the 40th Anniversary production of West Side Story, Fosse and the multi award-winning musical Spend Spend Spend.
Alain subsequently joined London advertising agency, McCabes, as Head of Marketing and then went on to join AKA as Head of Client Services before his appointment as Managing Director. As well as managing the overall agency, Alain took personal responsibility for leading marketing campaigns on the west end transfers of: War Horse, One Man, Two Guvnors, The History Boys and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. He also oversaw the campaigns of the record-breaking runs of The 39 Steps (7 years) and STOMP (14 years).
Alain was Marketing Consultant to the National Theatre for 12 years. Alain currently sits on the Board of National Theatre Productions.
Other campaigns included the London transfer of Beautiful – the Carole King musical, the world premiere of TINA, the Tina Turner musical, Marianne Elliot’s ground breaking production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, celebrated rivals of 42nd Street, Sweeney Todd, Carousel, Sunset Boulevard and Chess.
And finally... a personal highlight of Alain’s was the opportunity to work on the return of pantomime to the great London Palladium. Pantomime is an art form close to Alain’s heart and with the Palladium production now a firm fixture in the Capital’s festive calendar, Alain is delighted to continue his association with its director and producer Michael Harrison and Crossroads Pantomimes.