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April was an OK month attendance-wise, but a bad month money-wise. We averaged 83 paid attendees in April, but lost $492. That was primarily due to my offering guarantees that were not met by the door and the creel. For the Jaerv show on April 16, the extra publicity efforts we put out to the Scandinavian community did not bear fruit, and the attendance of 53 fell far short of my estimation. As a result we had to kick in an extra $286 (the highest on record) to make their $700 guarantee. In the case of Orrin Star on April 2, the attendance was a respectable 97, but the creel was surprisingly light, so we had to kick in $129 to make his $550 guarantee. Perhaps a good part of the audience was there to see Jeff DeSmedt, the opener, and was less interested in Orrin.
Attendance over the past 12 months remains healthy at 91.7 for regular shows, and 80.0 if we count the Open Stages. We are running $1325 in the black year to date.
A few thoughts about guarantees. While our pay scheme is identical for all performers, I set the guarantee based strictly on my estimation of what I think they will pull in, and what I need to offer in order to get them to agree to play. I will gamble on setting a high guarantee from time to time in order to get higher quality acts. For the most part, they pay off. Over the past two years, I've made guarantees of $600 or more 14 times. Only 3 of those shows required us to kick in anything extra (one of which was only $4.00). And the average attendance for those 14 shows was 136, indicating that for the most part, the shows with high guarantees bring in performers who result in the benefits of high attendance and resulting high returns.
Only one new headline booking made last month: Small Potatoes for November 19.
Highlights of our schedule for May: April Verch coming up this Friday, the 7th.
Mike Agranoff
Program Chairman
The Minstrel
Morristown, NJ, USA
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