Organisers of York's Millennium Mystery Plays are looking for £450,000 in sponsorship to help keep ticket prices down.

And they have revealed how they hope to involve the whole of the City of York in the spectacular production at York Minster, including almost 2,500 local schoolchildren.

In another development, a detailed marketing campaign is already being drawn up to capitalise on a potential audience which includes more than one million foreign visitors to Yorkshire each year.

As reported previously, the Mystery Plays are to be held in June and July of 2000.

Organisers say now that the production will necessarily be costly, with a total estimated budget of £700,000. But with ticket prices held down, so as to be affordable to the widest possible audience, only £248,000 will be raised through box office sales.

This will leave a shortfall of £452,000, and sponsorship is now being sought from companies, organisations and individuals.

Major sponsors contributing £25,000 will get plenty in return:

A full colour page in the souvenir programme.

Complimentary tickets for 40 guests, with complimentary parking at nearby Minster School.

Supper for guests at St William's College following the performance.

And the organisers will be prepared to consider "reasonable additional means of promoting a sponsor's name that is sympathetic to both the content of the plays and the setting of the Minster." Sponsorship in the form of help with lighting, seating and printing is also being sought.

The organisers say the production will involve more than 200 local actors and volunteers and nearly 2,500 children from primary and special schools, plus students from York, Hull, Leeds and Huddersfield University, York College of Further and Higher Education and the Accessible Arts Club for people with special learning difficulties.

They say: "The production gives a unique opportunity to open up access to the plays...to ensure that the whole city is given an opportunity to take part - either as an actor or as a volunteer working backstage, front of house, with props or costumes, publicity or stage management."

A detailed programme of auditions, workshops and activities is planned to begin in the autumn of 1999.

A number of associated educational projects are also planned for York schools, for example workshops to introduce children to the life and times of the Tudor period when the Mystery Plays were last performed.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.