To mark the show's journey from the official press night at the Victoria Palace Theatre through to Hamburg, a "do it yourself" effort went ahead. (The project is entirely "amateur", with no connection with, the show's "official" people.) All that now remains is to get the badges into the hands of those who would like one. (See also Project's main page.)
If you were part of the London or UK/Ireland/Germany tour, I would be happy to send you, no charge, one of the badges. (Ways for other people to obtain the badge are below.)
But the internet is a dangerous place. Under 18s: Get an adult to approach me on your behalf.
I am hoping that a few members of the cast/ company (current or past) who are relaxed about the internet will act on behalf of others, place "bulk" orders? The idea is to give people who (sensibly) don't want to give contact details to a stranger a way to get a badge.
What? Let me explain: This proposal is aimed at helping cast/ company. Please "talk" (email, etc) among yourselves. Organize "joint orders" from a "distributor" who will be the only one who has to have "contact" with me. If he/ she tells me "I need 10 badges", I will send 10 badges. The recipient gets their own, and passes the other 9 on. No charge. If your "customers" (or their adults, in the case of under-18s) would be willing to share just the name of who the badge is for, it would help me avoid being taken advantage of by fraudulent requesters. But that's not obligatory. (I'd keep a list, and be a little careful before sending a third badge "for" someone whose name had been on two previous "for.." lists!)
Not being a complete idiot, I'm hoping to avoid sending batches of badges to an address with no validation. If you would be willing to distribute to cast/ company you are in touch with, and would be willing to do something, anything, to help reassure me, it would be very welcome. But unless things get ridiculous, I'll take a chance, if you are unwilling/ unable. (I will be adding examples of possible "answers" later today, 25 July 17.)
For your protection, I would suggest that where possible, you use a "work" address, or similar, for your delivery address. "Mr Smith, c/o Fred's Chippy" is entirely acceptable.
Who am I? In this context, "just a fan". But from my web domain (sheepdogsoftware.co.uk), and the good services of the Wayback Machine, you can see snapshots of what's been at sheepdogsoftware.co.uk back to 2002. If you want me to "prove" that's "really me", send me a short phrase, and before long, it will appear in the "Validation phrases" paragraph just below the top of my main home page, in the Billy Badges section. (By the way, if you run a website, and haven't done it recently, do a Google search on your site's URL... but be sure your anti-malware suite is "on"... you might be amused/ astonished at some of the things sellers of site registration or SEO services are up to these days!)
This distribution project is a "work in progress". Email me with ideas, if you have any. If you don't want to do that, you can always just have a few made up for yourself. It isn't hard. The place that made mine charges (7/17) £12 for 10 (the minimum order.. £1.20, each, including UK delivery. They ship worldwide.) (Or a more sensible "per badge" cost of £16 for an order of 20. 80p per badge... and it gets better, the more you order.) The ordering process is simple. I've done a page that explains it. You are welcome to use my artwork. I have put it online for downloading. (You can't, alas, just ask the people who made my badges (AwesomeMerchandise.com to repeat my order, but take payment from you/ ship to you. Fair enough, I suppose.)
If you don't mind sending me a UK or US postal address to send a badge or two to, I can do that. At the moment, my inclination with that is to ask that after you've received your badge, you send me £5 / $5. (This "pay after" offer is currently under review. Order now and I will honor it. But later I may post a note here that the offer is going to be withdrawn. Check current conditions, just before ordering.)
Where will the money go? I will send most of that on to a charity, retaining enough to cover my postage costs, and the cost of your badge. (If it comes from a batch of 20, I would keep 1/20th of the cost of THAT BATCH. Ever notice how "the big boys" doing "charity" work speak of sending "all profits" to a charity? So, if they're doing badges, order 100 (cost $250, say), collect $10 each for 30 they "give" away (gross: $300), they give $50 to the charity... 1/6th of the money they collected. Nice work, if you don't mind looking in the mirror in the morning.) (I will try to get a list of charities I will send the money to up here soon... then you can specify one that you like when you send your money.)
I am quite prepared to work at this beyond 23 July 2017... if "late orders" come in, I will give the dust a little while to settle, order more, distribute.
The channels for obtaining one of the badges outlined above are somewhat restrictive. As I said, I like to be careful about my personal security, and I assume you do too. I am very open to other ideas for getting a badge to you... my email address is below.
To contact this page's author, Tom Boyd via...
You'll have to copy the eddress above by hand. It is a graphic, to make things difficult for spam engines. Please start the subject line of any emails with "BB", for "Billy Badge".
You'll have to copy that by hand. It is a graphic, to make things difficult for spam engines. Alternatively, use this link which will take you to a contact form. It "requires" an eddress for you (or it discards your message), but you can put "no@thanks.com" in. That will keep it happy.
Be sure to keep an eye on your spam folder for a few days, if you write to me. Simply because of the yahoo.co.uk domain, many spam filters assume that a reply from me is just spam.
This page was just to explain the how to obtain a badge. Other pages can be accessed from the index page for the July 2017 Billy Elliot Memento badge.
Page tested for compliance with INDUSTRY (not MS-only) standards, using the free, publicly accessible validator at validator.w3.org. Mostly passes. There were two "unknown attributes" in Google+ button code, two further "wrong" things in the Google Translate code, and similar in Flattr code. Sigh.