PRESS RELEASE:

Mini west end stars' YouTube channel hits 10 million views 

London weekend stage school becoming international YouTube sensation

A group of talented child performers who specialise in covers of musical theatre songs are taking YouTube by storm, and their channel has today hit the 10 million-view mark.  

Spirit Young Performers Company is home to some of the most exceptional young performers in the country, and is the brainchild of Sophie Boyce, a 23-year-old entrepreneur, whose groundbreaking way of training and showcasing her students has created an entertainment channel with a huge international fan base, and is unique amongst performing arts schools. 

The Spirit students' fame amongst pre-teens and teens has meant competition is fierce for spaces at the company's weekend classes and holiday courses - with students travelling from all over the UK to attend the London sessions.

Many of the Spirit kids have starred on the West End stage, taking lead roles in productions such as Matilda, Billy Elliot, and Les Mis, and Spirit fans from all over the world eagerly await the next posting of a Spirit musical theatre cover video, and are even travelling to the UK to meet their mini-idols.

Sophie, an ex-Channel 4 scriptwriter with a 1st class degree in filmmaking from the prestigious Met film school, established Spirit YPC two years ago, inspired by her love of filmmaking, her huge passion for musical theatre, and her knowledge of filmmaking.

 "We are the only company that uses a professional multi-camera crew. We release both performance videos and behind-the-scenes footage on YouTube. They have received a phenomenal amount of attention" Says Sophie.

"They have really tapped into the huge following that musical theatre has with pre-teens and teens in the UK and around the world."

Spirit's total audience has now hit 10 million, and is increasing at a rate of 30,000 per day.

The Spirit YouTube channel has 20 times more subscribers than ‘Matilda the Musical', 10 times more subscribers than ‘WhatsonStage', ‘Billy Elliot UK' and ‘Official London Theatre', and double that of the ‘National Theatre' and the ‘Royal Shakespeare Company'. 

Spirit's most popular video is a Disney medley mash up, which has had over 2 million views alone. 

www.spiritypc.co.uk

www.youtube.com/spiritypc

 - ENDS - 

Sophie Banks

Loudbird PR 

Sophie Banks and Angie Cronin

Loudbird PR and Communications

Tel: 07815 147073 and  07970 810302

www.loudbird.co.uk

Follow us on:www.twitter.com/loudbirdPR

About Spirit Young Performers Company

• Spirit founder, Sophie Boyce (23), studied practical filmmaking at the renowned Met Film School, leaving in 2012 with a 1st class Honours Degree.  She went on to work in TV, becoming a writer for TV shows like Skins and editing promotional films for Hollyoaks, amongst others, while continuing to pursue a filmmaking career.  She is a huge fan of musical theatre.  She founded Spirit two years ago. 

• In the last month, Spirit videos have been watched for an estimated 2,292,748 minutes, and have proved most popular in the UK, USA, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands.

• Spirit YPC offers one of the most intensive part-time programmes in the UK, with children training for between 3-14 hours every weekend in musical theatre, singing, drama and dance.

• Spirit attracts a YouTube audience of around 900,000 views every month. 

• Spirit's online audience currently includes: 45,000+ YouTube subscribers (increasing by 200 p/day on average) 10 million YouTube viewers (increasing by 30,000 p/day on average)

• The audience of subscribers Spirit has on YouTube is currently over ten times larger than channels such as ‘WhatsonStage', ‘Billy Elliot UK' and ‘Official London Theatre', and double that of the ‘National Theatre' and ‘Royal Shakespeare Company' channels.
   
  .   In the last year, Spirit has been approached to perform at the Perform/Move It Main Stage, at the 02 Arena supporting Andrea Bocelli and on prime-time television: ITV's "Keep it in the Family".