Troubadour Booking

The state of the Troubadour in its 2^nd month of post COVID operation is much like that of September. Great shows to tiny audiences. Our average paid attendance for the three shows in October was 39.3. (49.7 total attendance.) Financially our operations lost $1,016 for the month. That, so far, has been covered by individual donations to the Troubadour from Bill Henderson, plus another $500 check handed to me at the Silk City show by one of our attendees. And, as I reported last month, I will be covering additional losses when these have been exhausted. So financially we are fine. However, experientially we are hurting from empty seats. I am prepared to continue our operations as is, with the confidence that as the country begins to emerge from the Pandemic next year, attendees will also begin to emerge from under the covers and come back to attend live concerts.

Our performers have been doing well, taking home an average of $664 from their live performances. I do not have full data on their online earnings, but I estimate that it will be in the area of $100 on top of what they get from us directly.

I have resumed attaching the Chart of Troubadour attendance and P&L performance to these monthly reports.

Jean Scully will report in more detail on the state of our volunteers, but we do have a couple of new people training for critical positions of Exchequer and Sound.

I had written an article for the November Newsletter, urging more people to attend in person, but due to slip in communications, it did not make the issue. It will appear in the January issue. (There is only one Troubadour show in December.) At my request, Kathi Caccavale posted it on our Facebook page. I’ve attached the article for those interested. And in particular, I’d like to ask all of you who are receiving this report (and who are COVID-vaccinated) to come on back to the live performances. The shows are fantastic, the conditions are more than safe. Bring friends. We need you there.

Our attendance numbers are probably also suffering from the lack of any real Publicity activity over the past months. Hopefully that will be rectified by the emergence of Sam Edelston as our new Publicity Chair, as will be covered in the Nominations Committee report.

This past Monday, I was informed that Bill Staines, scheduled for November 5^th, had fallen and injured his wrist, and would be unable to make his performance. He will be out of action for about 6 weeks, and is expected to make a full recovery. He has been re-booked for April 15, 2022. I was able to book Pat Wictor to take his place on November 5.

One thing I’ve noticed over the past few months is that the new operations of the Troubadour are occupying a lot more time than pre-Pandemic on the part of myself, the Sound Chairman, the Treasurer and Bookkeeper, the Facebook Administrator, and the Webmaster. (Also on the part of the Streaming Committee, which did not exist pre-Pandemic.) A lot of this has been due to startup glitches. But a significant portion of that is due to:

1. The new website and calendar input procedures.

2. The addition of livestreaming our concerts.

3. Revisions to the Tally Sheet and other documents to handle streaming income, and other new procedures.

I know that I’ve spent numerous days when I’ve put in 6 to 8 hours on Folk Project-related activities. And I know John Lamb has probably put in more time than me with the problems I’ve given him to solve. I thank all of these people for the enormous effort they’ve willingly put in getting us back in operation. Hopefully, these overtime hours will subside eventually as we learn and fall into new routines and procedures.

I also want to thank in particular Mark Schaffer, who has made himself available for any open volunteer position on every show we’ve presented since reopening.

New bookings this month:

1. Nov. 5: Blues-oriented songwriter and slide guitarist Pat Wictor, substituting for the injured Bill Staines.

2. Dec. 3: Chris Carpenter, Diane Polledri, Paul Fisher, and Mike Agranoff for our annual Chorus Song Night

3. Jan. 28: Windborne: Wonderful young vocal harmony quartet, reminiscent of Finest Kind.

4. Feb. 18: Tina Ross: FP Member singer-songwriter, opening for Tom Chapin

5. Mar. 18: The Fermenters: Newgrass/Americana trio with echoes of the Grateful Dead, opening for Beppe Gambetta

6. Apr. 15: Bill Staines, as mentioned above rescheduled from Nov. 5

7. Apr. 22: The Levins, songwriter duo opening for Joe Jencks

Highlight for November:

1. Nov. 19: FP favorite, comedic singer songwriter, Christine Lavin.

Respectfully submitted:

Mike Agranoff

Program Chair

The Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series

Morristown, NJ. USA