It just doesn't work anymore.
The days of cost effective promotion are over. Social media is so toxic that I refuse to create and share events, visit group pages, and tell my "friends" about upcoming performances. And a social media platform that relies on visuals is no help for a art form that relies on the imagination or "the minds eye".
Email newsletter platforms are now too expensive, and if I am spending a lot of my time unsubscribing, so is everyone else.
Eventbrite or other on-line ticketing services are now too cluttered and too expensive.
Covid decimated local theatre spaces. The result is that they will accept anything if it pays the rent, even if that means ignoring their mandate to present only live theatre.
Local media is dead or dying. Certainly it's standards have been chopped off at the knees.
It's just no fun anymore. Sigh