Resources

Postering & Stickering Guide

Why sticker/poster your street, village, town or city?

Outreach is a key part of our strategy. This movement will only succeed if we get masses of people to pledge and organise with us. We need to be seen in every town, city, campus and school across the country. We need to let people know there is a solution, that we’re taking collective action to fight the energy bills crisis, and they can too.

Painting the streets is a great way to:

  • Recruit new people to the movement
  • Raise the profile of Don’t Pay
  • Have fun and meet people from the campaign

Big corporations spend millions of pounds on real word visibility because it works. We’re going to do it ourselves.

Planning your flyposting/stickering session

  • Get materials
    • The Don’t Pay design team has created a bunch of materials for you to use. Click here to buy them and get them posted straight to you.
    • There are also Don’t Pay materials you can download and print yourself:
      • Access the resources on the website here.
      • Get them printed at Solopress, Apprintable or a local printer. Use bond paper or something with an unfinished, natural look for posters. Thin (and cheaper!) paper is often easier to paste. Use recycled paper if possible.
      • Larger print runs are cheaper so if you’re planning to go out again and again it could be worth printing lots at the same time!
  • Build a team
    • Groups of 2 - 8 people work for postering. Stickering can be done on your own (although it’s much more fun with others!). Post in your local Don’t Pay group’s whatsapp chat to invite others to join you.
    • For flyposting, you’ll want to assign team roles before you begin. We’d recommend:
      • Lookout / Greeter: Someone to talk with passers by who have questions while you’re flyposting. This person can help de-escalate any interactions (although most people will ignore you) and keep a lookout.
      • Flyposters: Ideally 2-4 people. ‘Clean Hands’ Flyposter(s) who carries the posters and place on the wall. ‘Dirty Hands’ Flyposter(s) who brushes glue over the poster and pastes to the wall.
      • Optional Driver: Depending on how far apart your walls are it could be helpful to have a designated driver.
  • Pick a location
    • Good locations include:
      • Places with high footfall and lots of people looking at it
      • Ugly concrete walls and disused space (so they don’t get taken down)
      • Lampposts, council owned property and other spaces that are often fly posted
      • Derelict buildings
      • Temporary structures like hoardings
      • Green electrical boxes
    • Avoid locations such as:
      • Beautiful historic buildings such as churches
      • Symbolic locations like war memorials and monuments
      • Private property such as houses, pubs and small businesses
      • Billboards (unless empty)
      • Schools, hospitals, police stations….. (not the best idea!)
    • Get your materials

Action day

  • Meet and practice
    • Meet ahead to time to get to know each other, decide roles, make your paste and practice!
    • Make sure everyone has a chance to introduce themselves to the group with their name, their pronouns and perhaps a fun fact or another ice breaker question
    • Make sure that anyone who is new to Don’t Pay signs up to join the movement here - dontpay.uk/get-involved/ - and is added to local whatsapp groups.
    • Talk with your team about why you’re doing this, the urgency of the cost of living crisis and how we need people to know the Don’t Pay movement is a way to fight back.
    • Have a conversation in your team about safety and what you’ll do if things go wrong. While flypostering is technically against the law it’s very unlikely you’ll get into any trouble if you do it right. Make sure you follow the guide and read our legal note at the bottom of this document.
    • If you can scout your walls ahead of time - this’ll make the whole thing run more smoothly!
  • Paste, sticker and paste!
    • Paint the paste on your chosen spot (concrete, porous surfaces are ideal). Paste over a larger area than the poster. Firmly push your poster flat against the wet surface. Finally, apply a second coat of paste over your poster, brushing out any air bubbles. You’re done!
    • Good pasting will look neat. Placing multiple posters together in one place can create a great effect.
    • Why paste? Because they stay up. Tacked or taped posters will only last a few days. Pasted posters in the right location can last months.

  • Take and post photos
    • We can reach lots of people in our communities with flyposting, but often we want a further reach. Social media is a great way to amplify this message. It can help us have the effect of “this is everywhere” without having to flypost every street corner.
    • There are several key elements to keep in mind to get a great photograph of your posters
      • Get multiple posters in one image. This makes it look like you covered more ground (as opposed to one poster in the middle of a large wall)
      • Crop your photo close up to the posters
        • This has a similar effect as getting multiple posters in your frame.
        • Cropping gives the feeling that the posters could extend past this frame onto the whole wall.
      • Have a “human element” in the image
        • A bike, skateboard, bus stop, or a mailbox, for example.
        • This gives the impression that this is a place where people would actually see the poster, as opposed to a deserted edge of town.
      • Include a landmark of the city or town in the background
        • This gives context to your image. Is this the town centre? Is it on a significant building?
  • Post on social media and tag the Don’t Pay social accounts! (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) We’ll then share your photos in

  • Debrief
    • It’s important to make sure to check-in with everyone on your team and debrief how the action went for them.
    • This can be a nice time to have some social time too - maybe sit in a park to debrief together or grab a table in a nearby cafe.

Rinse and repeat!

Now you’ve got an experienced team together it’s important to take action again. We need to be everywhere - and that means going big on our street painting operation.

Can you organise a regular session with your local group? Could you set a day each weekend?

Legal

While flyposting (which includes stickering) is technically against the law, it’s a common activity for social movements, and it’s very unlikely you’ll get into any trouble if you do it right.

Fly-posting is an offence under Section 224(3) of the Town and Country Planning Act (TCPA) 1990 and the Highways Act 1980, and a Fixed Penalty Notice can be issued to the person doing the flyposting.

Flyposting and stickering could also technically be considered criminal damage, though prosecution for this is extremely unlikely.