# Talent Show



## NHStech (Feb 8, 2010)

It has fallen on me to organize and run the talent show for our school, previously done by out former assistant principal. I am keeping it going because I believe it can be a good fundraiser for equpiment. Any suggestions on "must dos" or "stay away froms"?


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## Anvilx (Feb 8, 2010)

(Kinda Obvious) I'm going to say that a must do is charge admission thoroughly and consistently.


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## Anonymous067 (Feb 8, 2010)

all i have to say is best of luck. hope it goes better than mine is.


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## NHStech (Feb 10, 2010)

Yikes! I may want to rethink this!


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## SHARYNF (Feb 10, 2010)

I have been involved in these sort of events quite a lot

Basically IMO you are far better NOT to charge admission, but rather we typically do a desert auction in between each of the acts. We also solicit items to put out for a silent auction. In my experience you can raise many times what you would get from simply charging admission

Sharyn


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## Anvilx (Feb 10, 2010)

SHARYNF said:


> Basically IMO you are far better NOT to charge admission, but rather we typically do a desert auction in between each of the acts. We also solicit items to put out for a silent auction. In my experience you can raise many times what you would get from simply charging admission



I like that idea, but it depends on who your primary audience is and how willing they are to shell out cash. NHStech, who is your audience and what do you know about them?


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## feedbackdj (Feb 10, 2010)

In my experience, admission is the only way to go. We are a larger city high school and the audience is usually students.

My biggest suggestion is to make a time limit on the acts. Some of them can really drag on...


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## MarshallPope (Feb 10, 2010)

I would make sure that the acts are evenly dispersed. If you have 5 rappers like my high school did, I would suggest spreading them throughout the program so the audience doesn't have to sit through 30 minutes of that all at once.


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## LeadHead (Feb 10, 2010)

The biggest thing IMO is to make sure individual acts lighting wants/needs and their corresponding music/audio is organized and planned out well before the actual show date. 

We just had a "Lip Synching" competition at my school on monday, and while I'm not an official member of students assigned to run the lights/sound, I got to stay up in the booth because of my assistance in getting the lighting system working again. Boy was it a mess. Acts were coming up into the booth ~30 minutes before the show was supposed to begin telling the light board operators how they wanted their lights, others were handing the soundman iPods with their music on them when they had specifically stated they had wanted everything on labeled CDs.

The end result was a bunch of scribbled notes for certain lighting looks (didn't come out oh so great during the actual competition) and a pile of unmarked MP3 players that had to be switched around between acts. Two acts ended up having the wrong song playing in the beginning because of this mess. We're having an actual real talent show within the two weeks, and as a result of the above mentioned incident rules have been put into place. Ex, if you're song/music is not on CD you won't be allowed to go up on stage, etc..

We charged $3 at the door, or $2 with a canned good for the Lip Synching competition, and the turnout was "okay" not great, could have been better. Charging admission is fine as long as you can drum up enough awareness of the talent show in school well before the actual competition. Also I think its better if you place some of the more solid/better acts towards the end, so audience ends up feeling more satisfied that the admission cost was worth it.


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## NHStech (Feb 12, 2010)

Thanks, everyone. I like the idea about spreading the acts out. This talent show was started a few years ago by a former vice-principal who wanted to do something for the kids. It was during the school day, but was done during a half-day right before spring break - kids' minds were not on scholarly things anyway, and besides, it was a half day, and any of you who are teachers know how much you get done on half days!
I figure I have about 100 minutes to work with. I was going to get together a panel of 3 teachers as judges (performing experience required), and winnow out 15 acts for five minutes each. 
The principal charged $1, but most kids caught on he let anyone in. He did that because he brought in outside professionals for sound (really irritated my stage crew). My thought is to charge $2 and all tickets must be sold in advance. I would have to figure out logistics with the principal about what to do with the kids who do not buy tickets. 
So, basically, the audience are the school kids during a half day. Perhaps this will stimulate further discussion. My apologies I did not get this info to you in the first place.


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## GrayeKnight (Feb 12, 2010)

Well, if you plan to only pre-sell tickets, you might run into a problem with people wanting to come in right before the show.. last minute plan changes etc. 

How about selling "preshow" tickets for $2, and at the door for $4? That way it will give an incentive to buy early and might lead to more sales. Also, you wouldn't have to be turning anyone away because of your policy.

As far as everything else, the couple of other responses in this thread have hit the nail on the head. Be organized. Have at least one dress rehearsal the day before even if it's just a dry tech. Have set lists posted backstage and make sure both your sound and light board ops have an updated list. Organization is key in any kind of student run talent show, most likely the performers will already be stressed/nervous enough without having to deal with something going wrong (and so will you, too).

In my experience with our talent shows, we have a "bake sale" (cookies, soda, etc) in a 20 minute intermission. Use this wisely! Have a band playing in your lobby/cafeteria/wherever you can have a reception type event. Sell the baked goods and sodas for $1. Have a fundraiser, raffle at the end, there are many ways to make money and still have fun, but organization is key! Don't try to take on all of these things yourself 

Pictures when you get it done!

Also, put some trusses onstage and throw a couple of pars in them. The audience eats it up!


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## SHARYNF (Feb 12, 2010)

Don't know what your school rules are re food and the venue, but if you look at a typical movie theater, most of the money is made on "eats and drinks"

Is this really to raise funds for equipment or is it really just for entertainment? Don't know how big your school is or how much you want to raise, but typically the students are not the best source for money over and above the value of the entertainment. Again Food and Drinks are where the money is for students for non top shelf entertainment. 

it is probably a minor issue at this point to talent shows with admission fees are a sticky point on IP rights.

Sharyn


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## WestlakeTech (Feb 12, 2010)

1. Rehearse EVERYTHING. Sometimes people think you can just kinda fly by the seat of your pants when it comes to things like that. But then you're totally unprepared for whatever problems you DO have that tend to occur at the worst possible times during the show.

2. A recommendation would be to not let rock bands participate... I mean, if you have enough bands that want to, go ahead and hold a separate Battle of the Bands like we do. But if it's mixed in with singing/dancing performances, comedy acts, and that weird kid doing a chinese yo-yo act, it's a lot of equipment (amps, drums, mics, etc...) to move around throughout the night. But again, that's just a suggestion. You might be able to make it work. And I'm sure it would bring in some more people. But consider the Battle idea...

3. During our battle of the bands (closest thing we've got to a talent show... even though they're really not that talented), we usually have a Guitar Hero competition on the projection screen in between acts. They hold try-outs in the week leading up, then they have a little play-off with the best few during the performance Saturday night. Winner gets some prize (gift card?) and bragging rights... Anyway... just another suggestion.


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## LeadHead (Feb 12, 2010)

Forgot to mention how they did/do admissions. I thought they handled the admissions side of things pretty good at my school though. All of the other entrances (side, etc.) are locked, so you can only get in through the main doors, and they have a table set up manned by a few people collecting admissions. Pretty hard to get by without being caught.

Also if you have an after show "Judging" make sure the audience is aware that a winner is going to be chosen after. Half of our audience packed it up and left before the winner was chosen because they weren't quite clear about what was going on.


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## lieperjp (Feb 13, 2010)

I second, third, or fourth(?) the suggestion to rehearse *everything*. Have one specific person run the rehearsals. Here it is the sound board op who runs rehearsals, as the major point of rehearsals is getting used to sound levels, microphones, etc. Lights usually just get busked. 

If you expect >5 min acts, block out practice times that allow for at least 20 min per act. This will allow for plenty of set up time, and allow the acts to go through everything at least twice. Require them to go through it at least twice just to make the act and space more familiar with each other. I would suggest recording the practices so if you have any questions or if the light or sound person wants to practice, they can.

Require any acts that have anything special to be labeled. Require it to be to you at least 24 hours before hand (or for their rehearsals). Make a point that if they don't get it to you, it's their problem and their loss. Label everything. Label everything. Write everything down. You may not think you'll forget anything, but you will. And when something goes wrong, you will be the one that looks like an idiot in front of the whole audience. 

Also, make sure you have someone in charge at the show. Don't let the acts do whatever they want to do. It also helps to have some familiar hosts/emcees to help the show run smoothly between acts for the audience. 

With regards to the rock band thing: If you have bands mixed in with other acts, come up with a "set" so that things like drum set, piano, etc. can stay on stage without them being in the way for other acts. That way you don't have to move them in and out for the bands. Something that works well is to run all guitars into the house/monitors through Direct Boxes so that you don't have to worry about carting amps in and out. Or have one set of amps that works for everyone - people can bring in their own foot pedals and effects, etc. Usually high school bands don't have that much stuff anyways. 

Have a crew of people that know your space well. Depending on the acts, you will want a large stage crew - for our talent shows we usually have a running crew of 12 people - larger than any theatrical production! Having a large crew - and assigning them *specific* tasks for each act will make things run smoothly and efficiently. 

Also, as a note about admissions: If you are running this show as part of your school day, you really should *not* charge admission. Students have to show up for it, with or without choice. Charging them for admission to come to school isn't really fair. If you run it outside of the school day, by all means charge admission.


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## MarshallPope (Feb 13, 2010)

About rock bands and the like - it can help to have a drum wagon so that they can be set up offstage and just rolled on when it comes time.


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## n1ist (Feb 13, 2010)

> All of the other entrances (side, etc.) are locked, so you can only get in through the main doors


Make sure all of those doors have appropriate panic bars so they can still be used as exits in an emergency.


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## Anonymous067 (Feb 13, 2010)

LeadHead said:


> The biggest thing IMO is to make sure individual acts lighting wants/needs and their corresponding music/audio is organized and planned out well before the actual show date.
> 
> We just had a "Lip Synching" competition at my school on monday, and while I'm not an official member of students assigned to run the lights/sound, I got to stay up in the booth because of my assistance in getting the lighting system working again. Boy was it a mess. Acts were coming up into the booth ~30 minutes before the show was supposed to begin telling the light board operators how they wanted their lights, others were handing the soundman iPods with their music on them when they had specifically stated they had wanted everything on labeled CDs.
> 
> ...



Been there, done that. The problem is, nobody will every follow through on the "no cd no stage" thing. It just doesn't happen. I had acts added to my shows the day of, 10 minutes before they started...

Bottom line, just accept that fact that talent shows are talent shows. They aren't high quality productions. I learned this the hard way.

Don't expect anybody to listen to you, and don't expect any respect. If you have the patience to deal with all this, go for it. Otherwise bail before you get involved...


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## LeadHead (Feb 14, 2010)

n1ist said:


> Make sure all of those doors have appropriate panic bars so they can still be used as exits in an emergency.



The doors only lock from the outside of the auditorium, so they can still be opened from inside if need be.

@Blah, well that is exactly what happened with our "Lip Syncing" competition. 

Luckily our next talent show coming up is actually a "guy" beauty pageant, and they have to show off talents, etc.. Sounds kind of weird, but if you ever saw it, its pretty funny. Even older adults usually have a good time. But anyways, there was a sign up about 4 weeks ago, and after that nobody is allowed to sign up and there is usually 2-3 practices a week. Its not as open and "wild" as a regular talent show, but its a lot more organized.


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## Tex (Feb 16, 2010)

I haven't been involved in the talent show at my current school, but the first thing on my list at the old school was to hire a couple of off duty police officers to stand in the back of the house in uniform. Keeps eveything nice and calm...


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## Kelite (Feb 16, 2010)

There have been some very good comments regarding this fundraising event, and I would certainly agree with many of them. As you know, the time slot per student/act needs to be _S P E L L E D O U T_ to the students so the props/musical equipment/etc doesn't create a log jam in your program. And having some type of full-blown rehearsal would really be a good idea as previously suggested.

Please let us know how it goes, and attach a few pictures if you get the chance!


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## hhslights (Feb 16, 2010)

One big thing that we have found out the hard way, don't give anyone any microphone of any value. We have some really old, but still somewhat functional, mics that we let them use. We used to distribute our good mics and one year at the end of a rap act, the mics were thrown onto the stage. We also had a a small riot start up one year, had to go into panic mode. Give them mics you can live without or none at all and try and keep the controversy to a low.


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## Bottletree (Feb 19, 2010)

You don't say what age the children are, but if they are HS or upper grade school (7 or 8) I would recommend giving ownership to the students to organise it. Then I would call local community theatres, colleges with theatre programs, or professional theatres and ask for some donated help to mentor the kids and to give advice about organising the event. Other resources to ask for help: event planners (wedding planners count!) tournament organisers parents ( you never know when you have a Stage Manager in the pool) Have fun with it, and don't worry. It'll be great, no matter what you do.


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## MLPucci (Feb 28, 2010)

I realize that this is quite late, but...

In my high school the talent show is the big Freshmen fundraiser. The Freshman Class Adviser organizes the show with the class officers. The auditions are held the first week of December, with a dress rehearsal the second week of January, and the actual show the third week. They charge $5 for admission, which isn't too bad. There is a short intermission where they sell deserts and snacks in the hallway outside the theater.

During the actual show, one or two seniors act as the emcee(s), and there is usually some little gag they do to start off and get the audience into the spirit. We do let bands play, but they have to play at the end. The curtain gets closed and the band sets up during the previous act, and then the curtain opens up and they go on with little work seen to the audience.

As for crew, we have two spot-ops, our sound guy running the cd player and the board, someone on the light board (in the past we've used subs for ease, speed, and the ability to change), someone on curtain, a few kids on run crew, and the Stage Manager...

The stage manager is by far one of the most important people in a talent show, IMO. You need someone who can work under pressure, solve problems on the fly, and who will stand up and remind anyone who is forgetting that they are the SM, they run the stage.

Sorry if this is too much for you, it's been a long day...

M.L. Pucci
Lighting Designer
Croton-Harmon High School, NY


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## shiben (Mar 2, 2010)

Rock bands are fine, as long as you only have like 2 or 3 of them. Then space them in with the intermission and standup comedy acts that you can close the curtain for and set up/strike behind. If your organized, you can even do the entire thing on the fly if you have to, but its usually better to just cue it up and let er rip. Rehersals = good. At our college, we made people show up for a blocking rehersal, a technical rehersal and a dress rehersal just to be allowed to participate. Tech and dress were on the same night, with catering in between for the crew... I approve this idea much. I think the 2 bucks in advance and 4 at the door is probably a good idea... maybe charge a discounted price if you bring a canned good for some local charity. My HS had a talent show that cost 5 bucks to go to, but you could bring a can of food to knock a dollar off the price, and it stacked, so you could bring no money and 5 cans of food. They also gave free pop/food to people with canned food, but the entire point was to raise canned goods for the local food bank. They raised about a semi of food or something outrageous like that. Basically, pick a cause and charge based on that. Food and drink is a good thing. You can also have one of the rock bands that is slightly better than the rest/can play a 20 min set do the intermission in the lobby. Also, if you dont get music from the band/group that they want played, then they dont get it played. You would be shocked how few dance groups want to perform without their backing track. However, this will probably raise your level from ok theatre geek to total not ok theatre geek in the eyes of that entire group's friends, so be forwarnd. Best delegate this task of telling people they cant go on with music. CDs are good. QLab is even better, IMO. Another thing with CDs, if you have the facilities, make a single CD and have the entire thing mastered so that all songs are about the same volume, or at least give the FoH engineer some notification as to when the volume will be higher/lower. I second the comment on using crappy mics. We had just gotten a new Shure wireless hand-held last summer (2, actually), when the hip-hop group decided to end their set by tossing the mics into the air. Needless to say, NFG after that. Use cheaper/studier mics. Also, take the cable, bring it up to the windscreen and then back down, and etape the crap out of it. Allows mic to be swung lightly more safely. Not to encourage it, its going to happen, so just try and prevent an SM-58 from hitting someone in the face when it unclips. Lighting: go big or go home, but go big for everyone. Dont pick out the "coolest" act and hit them hard with cool effects. Make that stand up guy feel like hes on Comedy Centeral Presents, even if hes barely funny. He will have a better time, and people will be more excited by him, generally. Crowd blinders are great for rock shows, dances should look nice. Haze = very good. Have some people designated security, either local off duty cops (usually costs money), or find some teachers willing to do it. Keep people out of the backstage/green room unless they are the ones performing. We usually had 2-10 guards from campus security at our college talent show type gigs. If you have them, security types should all wear the same thing so as to be identifiable. Ours were campus security, but yours might just be black t-shirts with "security" stamped on the back or something. Nothing fancy needed. Time: 5 minutes for a bad act can be forever. Make it fair and limit everyone, if the talent wont get off the stage when they ought, the mute and blackout buttons work wonders at getting people shut up. So does the grand drape in conjunction with the mute button. Also, try and screen the acts. Last thing you want is the principal shutting you down because some dummy spouted his mouth with a good naughty word or two, or that dance group forgot to put on the actual costume. Had this issue at my college 2 years ago, it was not pretty. Actually had to keep some higher ups off the stage using force (hooray for campus security). Just dont let it happen if you can help it. PS, West Michiganders ftw.

Oh, and since good communication is key, have a talkback in the monitors for rehearsal (and for the performance, if the acts are poorly behaved. Also, yell as little as possible. Have clear-com/telex or some other intercom between the booth, stage, backstage, and house management. If you can, a video feed of the stage to the greenroom/ backstage area can be helpful in prepping acts. And yell as little as humanly possible. If someone is yelling at you, take it, and respond calmly and professionally. Only raise your voice if you need to in order to be heard over a lot of noise, and a mic is preferable to yelling. Makes people happier.


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