Bloggers, Vloggers, Freebies, Impartiality and all that.

It's not even a rumour! I had the ATG members email announcing the performance dates and on-sale dates for Manchester this morning.

I’ll humour you - if people are getting emails about it then it’s not… a rumour.

It’s entirely possible people have heard the same thing, so why hide the replies?

The reality is that among a lot of intense personalities, Shaun is perhaps the most kind-hearted in the blogging sphere.

He does more to uplift drama school graduates and off West End Theatre than just about anyone I know.

So many of the accusations levelled on this site are needlessly mean spirited.

He’s a ‘journalist’ now?!!!

He clearly gets most of his content from what we post here.

Thoughts? Xxxx

I didn't think anyone was? The criticism was of the blogger?

The thing with the theatrefan blog is all it ever seems to post is 'XYZ has been rumoured'. That's it, there's no context, credibility or vague source mentioned. Back when whatonstage had a rumour section there was at least some additional information that went with it, no matter how little.

And of course another Internet blogger/vlogger who also has received criticism will back up theatrefan.

At the end of the day the blog can do what they like, but it doesn't come across as a site of much authenticity or trust, which is quite important for building a loyal following in blogging.

He has done it time and time again. To me it loses absolutely any credibility when he has posted something as a 'rumour' that the theatres have already announced the pre-sale date for, and then to hide people's responses that point this out.

I always liked you 🥰

Indeed. And before he stopped posting on TheatreBoard he posted many scoops here. His predictions weren’t always correct but he had a very good record.

Sadly some members started slagging him off and he stopped posting here. Understandably. 

The pettiness and small mindedness of some of our members is disappointing. 

Let’s move the discussion on please. 

I have a feeling that Theatrefan nowadays gets sent a lot of information and rumours directly from various PR people involved with productions in order to get people talking. The "leaks" and rumours are probably often intentional.

There’s absolutely no way that every show across the entire country sends him information and tells him to post prior to the official announcement.

I have friends who work in theatre who have purposely kept extremely quiet to try and avoid him finding out.

Imagine working so hard on something that you’re excited to share with everyone for it to get ruined by a random person on Twitter that just wants followers.

Like I said, as someone who has friends who work in theatre, especially in PR and marketing, it does ruin it.

Ah, I see. The use of the word embargo suggested, at least to me, more uh dishonest approaches i.e., that someone was given an embargoed press release and posted it anyway. Posting a rumour from here or a friend who auditioned or anything like that isn't anything to do with an embargo.