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From: The Troubadour <mike.agranoff@folkproject.org>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2019 6:18 PM
To: 'Folk Project' <fullboard@folkproject.org>
Subject: Troubadour Booking Report, Jan. 2020
December, as usual, was a slow and quiet month at the Troubadour. We had only one regular show, plus the Chorus Song night, the other two Fridays being occupied by the OpenStage and the Holiday Benefit Show. We averaged only 55.5 paid (76.5 total) for the two shows, and lost $225. Year-to-date, we averaged 94.2 paid (114 total) per show, and came out $3,967 in the black. That’s an artificially high profit, due to my one year program of personally underwriting guarantee makeups. Without those contributions, our profit for the year would have been $872.
As I said in my year-end report last month, that underwriting program was not particularly successful in its goal of enlarging our regular audience. I had booked a number of high end (and high priced) acts in the hopes of attracting their fans to the Troubadour in hopes they’d come back for other shows. Unfortunately many of those high priced acts did not have the name recognition in our area to draw our regulars, and, evidently, the word of their appearance at the Troubadour did not reach enough of their following to bring in the newcomers.
We had hoped to make a trial webcast of Gathering Time with the Helnix webcasting service. But they seem to be in some sort of transitional state. I sent an inquiry to them in November through their website, and got no response. A week ago, I made a second inquiry. Their website seems extremely limited at the moment. There’s a link to sign in, but no opportunity to establish a new account. Their home page says, (and I’m quoting with all the grammatical errors), “2020 Helnix will Produce a new business products and services. Till then, thanks for visiting our website.”, and that’s all. There are no other links except the sign in and the “Contact”, which only give a form to send them an email message. No phone, but they do have a postal address. It doesn’t bode well for them.
New bookings since last month:
Feb. 21: Rod Abernethy: Singer-songwriter opening for Small Potatoes.
May 29: Dead to the Core: An acoustic celebration of the Grateful Dead with 4 excellent musicians led by Jeffrey Pepper Rogers. This will be a multi-media show with recordings of interviews with Gerry Garcia and other members of the Dead.
June 19: The GrooveBarbers: 4-man acapella group that includes 3 members of “Rockapella”
October 23: Don White: Comedic songwriter and storyteller.
Highlights for January
Jan. 17: Adam Agee & Jon Sousa: Celtic fiddle & guitar duo, reminiscent of Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill. Tearing up stages out west, but less known out this way
Jan 31: Joe Jencks of “Brother Sun”. Powerful voice singing socially significant music.
Respectfully submitted:
Mike Agranoff
Program Chair
The Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series
(Formerly the Minstrel Acoustic Concert Series)
Morristown, NJ. USA
www.Troubadour.FolkProject.org
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