Minstrel

From: The Troubadour <mike.agranoff@folkproject.org>

Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2019 1:14 PM

To: execboard@FolkProject.org

Subject: (still) Minstrel Booking Report, May 2019

Financials and overall performance

A pretty good month for the Minstrel in April, driven mostly by the sold-out Cheryl Wheeler show. The other two shows were somewhat disappointing. Del Rey’s show only drew 47 paid attendees, probably due in large part by the confluence of Good Friday and the first night of Passover. And RPR only drew 75 (paid) Tanglefoot fans. But overall our April attendance averaged 109.0 paid (121.3 total), and netted $394 profit. Year-to-date, our average attendance has been 115.4 paid (136.9 total), and we are running $2094 in the black. Cheryl Wheeler’s show will probably be our last real block-buster until the Richard Shindell show in August.

Cheryl Wheeler

An interesting side note about Cheryl Wheeler. When I had booked her back in July of last year, I had offered a flat $2,000 fee, rather than our usual formula with a percentage of the gate plus Creel vs a guarantee. At the time, we were just emerging from a period of unusually low attendance. And I had resolved to book some bigger acts at higher guarantees, and subsidize any guarantee makeup from my own pocket. And I believed it would be easier to sell an agent on a flat fee, rather than our cockamamie creel system. (Don’t get me wrong. I love the creel system. But it is highly unusual, and it can be a hard sell to agents skeptical about depending upon a “donation basket”.) But subsequent experience with the high-ticket acts thus far this year showed that if we sell out, we can deliver comfortably more than two grand to the headline act, and still make a healthy profit. So I resolved to pay Cheryl by our regular system, because our Bookkeepers and our tally sheet are geared to that system. So, before the show started, I told Cheryl we would be changing the formula by which she would be paid, and she would in all likelihood make more than her $2,000 guarantee, and certainly not less. She said that she’d be happy to take the two grand, but I explained it would be easier for us to do our normal procedure. At the end of the night, she wound up making a record-breaking $2,343. And a week later, we received a $300 donation from her because she liked the way we worked. She’s a class act in more ways than one.

Name Change

On April 16, there was a meeting of Paul Fisher, Gary Pratt, John Lamb, Lisa Hallman, and myself to determine all the things that needed to be done to implement the name change from “Minstrel” to Troubadour”. And based upon how long that would take, we would determine when the name change would become effective. We resolved upon an effectivity date of June 1, 2019 for the official change. And work is currently in progress by those people plus Diane Polledri, George Otto, Deborah Graham, Evelyn McNally, Amy Livingston, Jean Scully, and Beth Wilson (the crafter who will be modifying our backdrop) to be ready for the change.

Parking lot reconstruction

We received word from the Unitarian Fellowship that reconstruction work on the parking lot starting June 1. And that there will also be a short period of reconstruction on the building itself starting on that date, which will render the building unusable for two weeks. So we have cancelled the Small Potatoes/Jean Scully show on June 1 (to be rescheduled in 2020) and the OpenStage on June 8. We will be back in business under the new Troubadour name on June 15. But from then until sometime in September we will be parking on the street, and in the Morris Museum lot. The contract with the Morris Museum has been signed.

New Bookings since last month

• Sept. 6: David Stoddard, songwriter who opened for Cheryl Wheeler, and was voted a headline act by the audience, with Sharon Goldman opening.

Highlights in May

• All of the shows, really, but the one I’d like to recommend which may be less familiar to people is Jonathan Byrd and the Pickup Cowboys on May 24.

Respectfully submitted

Mike Agranoff

Program Chair

The Minstrel Acoustic Concert Series

Morristown, NJ. USA

www.Troubadour.FolkProject.org