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A so-so month in April. Average paid attendance was 80.6 for the 3 shows with paid performers; 62.3 including the open stage. Financial figures not available, but it looks like we will be about break-even for the month. Part of the reason involved the confluence of Good Friday and the first night of Passover on April 6. Scooter came up with the good idea of rescheduling the Open Stage to a holiday night in the future.
We will make a slight change in the way the feature performer fees are to be calculated. Heretofore, ticks turned in were not counted towards the performer attendance bonus (Feature act gets 75% of the gate after the first 100 attendees.) In future they will go towards that bonus. That will go into effect as soon as John can rework the equasions on the tally sheets.
We had to do a last-minute substitution for the feature act of June 22, when Hilary Foxsong discovered that she had double-booked herself as a member of the Folk Goddesses, scheduled at the Minstrel that night, and Gathering Time, scheduled at another venue the same night. Carla Ulbrich will do the date for the Minstrel.
Last month the Board voted to grant to the Minstrel (as well as Swingin' Tern and Special Concerts) $2000 to be spent towards increasing our attendance. (The "Asses in Seats" grant.) I made some inquiries as to whom I could book with such a budget that would accomplish this. Conversation with his agent left me confident that we could put on a Minstrel featuring [a well-known performer] with funds from the grant going to make up the difference between what we could generate via the standard Minstrel door price and pay scheme. While this is not yet confirmed, I am reasonably confident that it will come to pass some time in early February 2013. Such a show, however, would in all likelihood sell out, leaving many disgruntled fans unable to get a seat. We thought about taking advance sales or reservations for that one night. But Mark Schaffer came up with a better idea. Rather than a regular Minstrel, we would run that show as a Special Concert at the Minstrel. We could use Special Concerts' existing system of advance sales. I ran the idea past Howie, and he's fine with it. It would probably be a $20 ticket in advance, and $25 at the door. Details have yet to be worked out, and I have yet to run this by [the performer’s] agent. But it looks like that's the path we will pursue. Further developments to follow. [Editor’s note: performer’s name and monetary figure have been removed for privacy.]
This brings up the interesting connundrum that almost any act with the draw to require funds from the AIS grant to make their guarantee would run into the same problem. Which will make it difficult to spend the grant funds on higher-level performers. I would have to thread the delicate line of putting more asses in seats, but not so many as to risk a sellout. That's going to be tricky. Part of the basic structure of the Minstrel is that we operate without the labor-intensive complication of advance sales. If we start to approach capacity crowds on more than an occasional basis, we would have to institute a system of advance sales, which would put a significant additional load on our volunteer force. Maybe more asses in seats is not such a good idea after all.
New bookings in April:
· July 27: Guitar intstrumentalist Buzz Turner to open for Broadside Electric
· August 17: Guitarist and songwriter Bob Cannon (booked from the April Open Stage) to open for Bob Malone
· Oct. 26: Concertina whiz Jody Kruskal to open for Finest Kind
Highlight in May: The Phil Ochs extravaganza this Thursday and Friday, with the Phil Ochs documentary film on the 3rd and the Phil Ochs Song Night on the 4th.
Mike Agranoff
Program Chairman
The Minstrel
Morristown, NJ USA
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