Minstrel Booking

A rather quiet month for the Minstrel in December. We only held two shows: An Open Stage and Chorus Song night. It's notable that the attendance at Chorus Song Night was a really healthy 59 paid. But, considering we did not hold a regular show with a paid performer in the month, our average paid attendance of 47.0 is understandable. And we still managed to eek out a $39 profit for the month, primarily thanks to the reduced rent from running the Open Stage in the Terrace Room. Our net profit for the year was $3,967 for regular Minstrel operations, plus $1,860 for the Paxton concert, for an admirable total of $5,827.

Speaking of Open Stages, we held our second one in the Terrace Room under Christine DeLeon's leadership, and changed the orientation of the room to put the stage along the shorter wall. The consensus was that the stage along the long wall was slightly preferable because the center aisle in this month's version interfered with the video every time someone left or took their seat during the performance.

We held a meeting with myself, incoming Volunteer Chair Deborah Graham, outgoing Volunteer Barrett Wilson, and Amy Livingston to discuss some changes in staffing procedures. The results will be covered by the Minstrel Staffing report.

Many thanks to Nancy Kelner of thePublicity Committee for compiling a comprehensive list of area folk radio stations, along with names of shows and DJs, air times, and addresses to which performers' CD should be sent to. That information will be passed on to all upcoming performers, in hopes they will get them to the stations, who will mention us on the air in conjunction with their airing the music.

New bookings since last meeting:

· Feb. 5: Mustards Retreat with Katherine Rondeau opening. (Replacing Joe Crookston and Carrie Cantor originally scheduled for this date.)

· Apr. 22: Jim Hurst, Hot guitar with a bluegrass feel

· June 17: Joe Crookston with Carrie Cantor opening. (Rescheduled from Feb. 5.)

· Oct. 21: Christine Lavin

· Dec. 30: The Kennedys

Highlights for January:

· Jan 22: Beppe Gambetta with Shun Ng opening. Watch this guy Shun Ng! He is a young, very hot, and very radical guitarist. I'm fulling expecting him to blow the place away and get booked as a headliner.

· Jan. 29: David Roth with FP member band No Strings Attached opening.

- Mike Agranoff