Troubadour

NOTE: This report is the revised version, based on the emails that follow.

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

Sent: Sunday, September 1, 2019 5:49 PM

To: 'Board FP' <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Subject: Troubadour Booking Report: August 2019 -- Revised

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

Sent: Saturday, August 31, 2019 11:29 AM

To: 'Board FP' <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Subject: Troubadour Booking Report: August 2019

August was an interesting, and enlightening month at the Troubadour. I say enlightening, because it revised my attitude towards guarantee makeups (The extra money we have to kick in if our pay formula plus the Creel does not come up to the Feature Act’s guarantee). I’ll get to that in a bit.

Performance:

First, on to the facts and figures. Financially and attendance-wise it was an OK month; not up to my expectations and hopes, but still not bad. We averaged 108.7 paid (122.3 total) attendance, and ran a profit of $596. I was hoping for a sellout for Richard Shindell, but “only” managed 169 paid (176 total). Still, not too shabby. Similarly, I was hoping for a paid attendance of 100 for Johnny Doyle & Mick McAuley. But our actual paid attendance of 89 wasn’t too bad, considering the Labor Day weekend and the fact that the special publicity mailing to the Celtic niche outlets didn’t get released until only 2 weeks before the show. We had to kick in extra money to make the guarantees of both those acts; $291 to make Shindell’s $2,000 guarantee, and $173 to make Doyle & McAuley’s $1,200 guarantee. But despite the guarantee makeup for Doyle & McAuley, we still made a profit on that show. ($129) And that was the enlightening factor. I used to think that any time we needed to kick in funds to make the performer’s guarantee, it was a bad thing. But if we can put on a spectacular show, and still make a reasonable profit on it by kicking in a couple of hundred bucks, it’s a good thing! Consequently, I did not cover the guarantee makeup on that show from my personal funds as I had planned. The Shindell show also made a profit without my support, but it was pretty puny ($77). So I did cover the $291 guarantee makeup for that show to bring it up to a more reasonable $368. (My commitment to cover guarantee makeups expires at the end of this year.)

Year-to-date, we’re averaging a paid attendance of 105.5, and running a profit of $4,850.

Parking:

We’re fine-tuning our procedures for dealing with the parking situation. We are stationing volunteers outside to building to direct people to the appropriate parking places, and have purchased lights to illuminate the path to the Mobility-Challenged lot. Also, MUF has installed a floodlight to help with lighting that path. The original prediction was that the new lot would be done sometime in September. I’ve inquired at MUF for any updates on the completion date, and they said they’d get back to me next week. If there is any news, I’ll report it at the meeting.

Concert Window:

We received news from Concert Window that they will be shutting down operations as of Sept. 16. Which means that the show of Sept. 6 with David Stoddard will be our last broadcast. While I’m disappointed, I’m not heartbroken at the news. The broadcasts were a constant source of technical difficulties. Establishing and maintaining a connection with the CW server was an ongoing problem. And getting good sound on the video was difficult. The whole procedure of broadcasting was an additional load on the sound crew. And the finicky nature of connecting with the CW server was a challenge to many of the sound techs. It did provide us with an income of almost $1,000 over the past 12 months, half of which was shared with the headline acts.

We are investigating other webcasting platforms. John Lamb has been very helpful in that effort. Several we have looked at are unsatisfactory for our needs, but the search is ongoing. We will continue to video the performances, to provide our performers with a live performance video they can use for publicity purposes.

New bookings since last month:

• Jan. 24: The Loose Canons: 11-member acapella group for their 3rd appearance. A lot of humor

• Jan. 31: Joe Jencks: Well respected singer songwriter with a socio-political bent and a superb voice.

• Apr. 3: Michael P. Smith: Quirky, intellectual and sometimes humorous singer-songwriter

Highlight for September:

• Sept 20: Garnet Rogers: Canadian Singer-Songwriter (Brother and bandmate of the late Stan Rogers)

Respectfully submitted:

Mike Agranoff

Program Chair

The Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series

(Formerly the Minstrel Acoustic Concert Series)

Morristown, NJ. USA

www.Troubadour.FolkProject.org

From: Paul Fisher <paul.fisher@folkproject.org>

Sent: Sunday, September 1, 2019 12:00 PM

To: Mike.Agranoff@folkproject.org

Subject: Re: Troubadour Booking Report: August 2019

Hi Mike,

I don't understand where the extra money for the guarantee makeups came from. Is it out of the running profit for the year or just from door+creel?

Please explain.

If you think it is worth it, share the explanation with the rest of the Board. I'm just curious.

Thanks.

Paul

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

Sent: Sunday, September 1, 2019 4:37 PM

To: 'Board FP' <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Subject: FW: Troubadour Booking Report: August 2019

Paul asked me to clear up some confusion. Here’s the explanation.

Our standard formula for calculating the Feature Act’s pay is as follows: We pay them:

$200

Plus

70% of the gate after the first 100 paid (and we include the number of ticks and 2nd-timer passes in the number of paid attendees so the performer does not have to suffer from our generous freebee policy)

Plus

The Creel.

We guarantee that those three items will total a certain guaranteed amount, which is different for each act. If the formula does not come up to the guarantee, we kick in extra funds out of our money to meet that guarantee. That extra amount is the “Guarantee Makeup”.

Given the example of the Richard Shindell show,

His guarantee was $2,000

We had 169 paid admissions and 7 ticks for a total of 176.

The Creel totaled $977

So the formula came to $200 + [70% x (176-100) x $10] + $977

= $200 + (.7 x 76 x $10) + $977

= $200 + $532 + $977

= $1,709

So we had to kick in an extra $291 to make his $2,000 guarantee.

But we had $1,690 in ticket income, plus another $122 from the kitchen. Yes, we did have expenses like rent and the opening act’s fee, and ASCAP fees, and insurance, and the like. But the total of all our income sources, exceeded all our expenses, including the guarantee makeup. I’ve attached a screenshot of my database with the complete breakdown of income and expenses for that show.

Two items to be aware of with regards to that breakdown:

The Creel does not appear in the finances. That money does not go through our books, but rather is a direct gift from the audience to the Feature Act.
“FP $ to the Feature” includes both the money from the formula and the Guarantee Makeup.

Mike Agranoff

Program Chair

The Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series

(Formerly the Minstrel Acoustic Concert Series)

Morristown, NJ. USA

www.Troubadour.FolkProject.org

From: Mike Agranoff <mike@mikeagranoff.com>

Sent: Sunday, September 1, 2019 5:38 PM

To: 'Board FP' <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Subject: Whups!

When I sent my response to Paul’s question, something in the screenshot of the financials for the Shindell show caught my eye. The figure for the Liability Insurance expense was zero. I found the error, and corrected it to $91.25. That reduced the show’s profit to $77.21. I feel that is really too low for an artist like Richard Shindell. So I changed my mind, and I will cover the cost of the Guarantee Makeup for that show. That shows up as a $291 Donation Income in the revised screenshot attached. (Chris, I will make that deposit tomorrow.) That results in a more worthy profit of $367.72. I will send out a revised Troubadour Booking Report shortly.

Mike Agranoff