Minstrel Report
A month of rather low activity. We had only 3 shows this past month:
September 2 was cancelled due to the power loss from Hurricane Irene, and the 30th was closed for the FP Festival. And the 2nd was to be our high-draw act for the month with Dugan's Hooligans, so we wound up with pretty modest figures. We averaged only 81.6 paid for the 2 regular shows, and 71.6 including the Open Stage. It looks particularly bad when compared with last September, which was a blockbuster month for us. We came out $118 in the black.
Bill Henderson and I went down to the building on the night of the power outage to greet people who didn't get the word and explain the situation. I was unable to get a Minstrel-Gram out because of my own lack of electricity, and Rick was away so he couldn't e-blast the membership. But we did get the word up on the website. Despite our difficulties in communication, the word did get out somehow; there were very few people who showed up. After Festival, Lori wil be working with me to get the Minstrel-Gram up on to Constant Contact, which should eliminate the reliance on my computer to send out Minstrel-Grams.
We also got our first cancellation by MUF. They informed us that the building would not be available on December 16, which was scheduled with the acapella group, The Accidentals and the all-FP group Fibonacci. We are working on rescheduling them. The cancellation is within the terms of our contract with MUF. I'm not going to make a stink, as this will be the first time they've exercised that clause in the 6-1/2 years and 300+ shows since we've been there. I did let them know that, while it is within their rights, it does disrupt us some. (Less than it might have, since both acts are local, and can be rescheduled relatively easily.) They understand it is not something to do lightly.
We posted a photo of Max Beutnagel, one of the September Open Stage performers, on the website in the Minstrel calendar entry for the October Open Stage instead of the ubiquitous shot of Scooter in the back of his van.
We hope to make that a regular thing. Scooter took the shot, but I had to post it on the site, because Scooter was having difficulties with the process. Allan is supposed to be working that out with Scooter. Also I had John Lamb put a caption on the photo to explain its presence. I've asked Allan to see if he can tweak the calendar entry system so that others besides John can add captions to photos if necessary.
Not many new bookings made in September.
* Sept 7: Jazz guitarist Bill Brandon to open for Jeremy Kittel
* Dec. 30: Dugan's Hooligans, rescheduled from their cancelled show of
Sept 2
* Jan 27: Honor Finnegan to open for David Massengill
* March 30: Long Time Courting: an all-female Celtic band comprised of 4 of the hottest instrumentalists in the New England folk scene.
* July 6: The return of songwriter and guitar whiz Jack Williams.
October looks to be a great month with Jeremy Kittel on the 7th and Frank Vignola on the 28th.
Respectfully submitted:
Mike Agranoff
Program Chairman
The Minstrel
Morristown, NJ USA