Minstrel Booking

What little there was of the Minstrel in October, 2016 was pretty good. I say that, because other events scheduled on Fridays this month left us with only one regular show and one Open Stage. That show with Christine Lavin did very well with a paid attendance of 160 (176 total). And averaging in the Open Stage made that 92.5 paid (104.5 total). Another notable statistic is that our average paid attendance for regular shows over the past 12 months has been a healthy 94.6. (76.0 if we include the Open Stages and the Birthday Show.) Financially, we are solidly positive at $198 for October, and $988 year to date, but not as strong as I would like, considering our healthy attendance figures. It's considerably less than in previous years, because we, like all the other Folk Project venues, are now covering the costs of our insurance within our own finances, rather than considering that "overhead" as we did in in previous years. That should improve in 2017 when we raise our door price to $10.00.

There is one additional minor tweak to the financials next year that will also help our profits. Currently, our headline performers get an attendance bonus of 75% of the door after the first 100 paid attendees. (We also count redeemed ticks and redeemed 2nd-timer passes towards the attendee count for that purpose.) Starting in 2017, that percentage will be reduced to 70%. The performer will still be getting more per attendee next year than this ($7.00 next year vs $6.75 this year.) But the Folk Project will be keeping a little more of the extra dollar in admissions increase. (Sort of the Minstrel's version of taxing the uber-wealthy J.) I estimate that these changes will increase the Minstrel's profits by $2,000 to $2,300 in 2017. If that proves to be correct, I will share some of those profits with performers by increasing the opening act fees, which have been stagnant for the last 10 years or so.

New Bookings since last month:

April 28: The Levins Songwriter duo, opening for Jeanne Burns & Andrew Hardin

March 31: James Keelaghan Powerful Canadian songwriter, who had to cancel his 2016 show because of delays in getting his US work visa.

June 2: Frank Vignola & Vinnie Ragniolo Gypsy jazz guitarists

Oct. 20: Cindy Mangsen & Steve Gillette Longtime Minstrel favorites: trad. and contemporary folk.

Highlight for November:

November 18: Mollie O'Brien & Rich Moore: High-powered vocalist / guitarist duet. An "Agranoff Imperative". (I recommend them even more highly than the November 4 show featuring John Forster and myself, which is liable to be a pretty damn good show as well :-)

Mike Agranoff