# Recorded pre-show announcement?



## CSCTech

Hello,

I was thinking about getting a better way to let the audience know that a show is about to begin, I thought it might be better to have a recording saying something like "Ladys and gentleman, please make your way to your seats. The show is about to begin." And maybe another saying "Ladys and Gentleman the show is about to begin, enjoy your show."
Instead of flashing the houselights.
I was just wondering if anyone had a recording of something like this, we can always record our own, but just want to see what other people to or have.

Also, what do you do to let the audience know the show is about to start?


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## jowens

My advice would be to use a gentle bell tone. More pleasing to listen to - and people get it without being told what to do.
Good luck!
~Joe


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## DuckJordan

also setting the lights slightly lower (visibly noticeable drop) then about a minute then fade to black is what we use here.


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## Edrick

I would do a chiming noise with an announcement. Then bring the lighting down 25% or somewhere there abouts.


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## Eboy87

It varies with every show I do, but usually some variation of "Ladies and gentlemen, please turn off your cell phones, and no texting. Please enjoy our performance of whatever show we're currently doing." It generally gets the people in their seats.


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## cpf

I have a deck of pre-recorded announcements collected over the years for various needs. I find the most effective method, however, is simply dimming the lights slowly, eventually (30-45s) people realize that, hey, it's way darker now, must be showtime.


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## DaveySimps

We use a chime for the Lobby, and dim the house lights to half as we are ready to begin, pause for a second, then slowly dim the house out.

The Stratford Festival makes Lobby announcements exactly how you purpose to at 5 minuets and 2 minuets before curtain in the Lobby only.

~Dave


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## Anonymous067

All pre-recorded:

30 min to curtain-start playback timed track in lobby.
10 min to curtain- "Ladies and Gentlemen, the show will begin in 10 minutes"
5 min to curtain-"
1 min to curtain-" "Ladies and Gentlemen, please, take your seats, the show is about to begin."

House lights from 75 down to 30, sound go-"Welcome to "[insert high school name here] Theatre. Please take this moment to switch off all electronics and cellular devices. There is no flash photography allowed during this performance. Thank you, and enjoy the show."

House lights to 0, aisle lights up.

Show begins.

We also have a lobby CD for the intermission...all there is on that one is a 2 min return to your seats. haha


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## Chris15

Anonymous067 said:


> House lights from 75 down to 30, sound go-
> -snip-
> House lights to 0, aisle lights up.


 
That sequence is dangerously wrong. The MOMENT you start to dim the house is when the aisle lights need to be active, not when all the lights are already out...


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## Les

Chris15 said:


> That sequence is dangerously wrong. The MOMENT you start to dim the house is when the aisle lights need to be active, not when all the lights are already out...



Good catch! Most venues I have worked in don't even have the aisle lights (or "kicker" lights as I call them if they're recessed in a wall or the ends of the rows of seating) patched in to the dimming system. This means that they are on at all times, regardless of the status of the lighting console/cue stack. This is the best practice in my eyes because it is much more fail safe. 

...The multi-part house to half, house out cues are the most effective, possibly used in conjunction with chimes. Usually, I find that 5 dings for 5 minutes, 2 dings for 2 minutes works well (though I usually use the audience recall chimes for intermission). 

I NEVER flash the house lights. Way too tacky for my blood.


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## kiwitechgirl

We have foyer announcements pre-recorded:
- house open, please switch off cellphones and watch alarms
- show starting in five minutes, please take your seats
- show about to start, please move into the theatre immediately

We also have foyer chimes and if I need to, I can flash the foyer lights to get people moving (but this is a last resort!). Once in the theatre, it varies a bit from show to show, but the usual sequence is take house to half, play cellphone announcement, give them a few seconds to switch phones off, take house and preset out and start show. Some shows we don't have a cellphone announcement at all, some shows we'll record a specific one rather than use either of our two generic announcements which are a spoken message, and a whole lot of different cellphone rings.


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## Van

Our preshow announcements are a thing of beauty. Now as a warning we have the standard dimming of lobby lights to get everyone into the house and seatedthat is at approximately 5 mins. It's going to vary however, according to how full the house is that night, sometimes you must do your dip a bit earlier. A lobby-light dip is pretty universal, coupled with a soft chime or Ushers with small hand bells, this is a pretty efective way to get the folks motivated to thier seats. Once they are in the house and most everybody is seated we usually roll one of three of four pre-recorded curtain speeches. These always include the standard reminders of cell-phones, candy wrappers, late seating policies, no recording devices and then go on include anouncements of our season and show sponsors. Quite often we incorporate actors from the particular production to do the voice-over. Sometimes the Director wants the Voice to be no one associated with the show, I've been tapped to do it, My Daughter is recording one for our next production. Sometimes they are realy funny, mostly they are really straight. I just saw Lt. of Inishmore at ACT in Seattle Last week, they did theirs in Gaelic with a second voice translating into English.


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## mbenonis

We typically had 15, 5, and 2 minute announcements in the lobby, as well as a preshow announcement in the theatre. However, our announcement was after we faded to blackout. It went something like this (I used to have it memorized):

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the XXX Department of Drama's production of YYY. Please take a moment to locate the emergency exit nearest your seat. Exits are located to the left, right, and rear of the theatre. Please also take a moment to silence your cell phones and beepers. Recording and photography are strictly prohibited. Thank you! And enjoy the performance."

We also did themed announcements for various shows containing the same information but in a more show-related way (storm at sea for Midsummer, Radio Announcer Voice for the Tuna shows, etc).


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## NHStech

Pre-recorded announcements are great. If you choose to use them or not depends on your audience. Depending on the community, event, or venue, some people just do not know certain things - such as the dimming or flashing of lights means x minutes until show.
FOr me, I dim the lights to half house (I have florescents, yuck!) and set the cd to my speil, depending on time of day, mine goes something like... 

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for attending tonights performance at niles high school. The show will begin shortly. At this time, please turn off all cell phones and pagers. When the show begins, please enter or exit only between songs or acts. For the safety of our performers, please do not use flashes when taking pictures. There is to be no recording of tonights performance. Thank yo for your cooperation in these mattters, and enjoy the show.

Many of my clientel will have not set foot in a PAC or auditorium prior to this, so they will not know what certain signals mean. That is why I went to the cd.

I like the idea of having music when house opens and having the announcements built in to that.

Unfortunately, I cannot control lights, nor do I have any sound, out in the lobby.


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## Chris15

NHStech said:


> Many of my clientel will have not set foot in a PAC or auditorium prior to this, so they will not know what certain signals mean.


 
Ultimately a theatre audience, like most gatherings of people, will behave like sheep. If you can get the first few people responding to a signal, then most of the rest of the audience are likely to follow them...


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## Anonymous067

Chris15 said:


> Ultimately a theatre audience, like most gatherings of people, will behave like sheep. If you can get the first few people responding to a signal, then most of the rest of the audience are likely to follow them...


 
Generally a few well-planted decoys will also help with this. 

It's kind of like the jokes that nobody "gets" during the show, or the audience is unsure if they are "allowed" to laugh, so the designers/directors have to start the laughing/applause. Personally, my favorite part of being a designer. Knowing things the audience doesn't! ha.


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## nomuse

In our neighborhood, it is required by law to point out the emergency exits before each performance. When we use a pre-recorded announcement, that is always part of it.


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## nd925a

In our High school the director says flash lights... 5 min later flash lights again...etc. until the hallway is empty then house goes out (floor light switch is in a seperate location from the light board so they are on when house opens) and preshow announcment cue then show starts


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## howlingwolf487

ToolsForStagecraft has one. For a nominal fee, they'll even put your own custom message on there.


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## Shawncfer

Les said:


> I NEVER flash the house lights. Way too tacky for my blood.




THANK YOU! Finally someone agrees with me! I hate High Schools that Flash house lights.


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## chausman

So for all of you who don't like the flashing lights, what if your in a theater that doesn't have any sort of "sound system" in the lobby? Then what do we do?


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## cpf

Get someone with a loud voice out there? Get some ushers to herd people towards the doors? Get some music struck up in the auditorium to draw people back in? These are ideas I've come up with while dealing in lobbies with HID lighting with a "flash" speed of maybe 20 minutes on a good day.


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## chausman

cpf said:


> ... These are ideas I've come up with while dealing in lobbies with HID lighting with a "flash" speed of maybe 20 minutes on a good day.


 At least you don't have to worry about someone thinking it looked tacky. We just use the flashing method. There are only a few theaters in the area, they all flash lights, and our intermissions are so long that people just naturally start going to their seats anyway. 

As far as the original question, about pre-recorded announcements, we send out a real person, like the director of that show, the artistic director, or someone important and they say the usualy stuff. I like it that way because they can stall if necessary, unlike having a recording that just starts the show when we aren't ready.


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## Les

chausman said:


> So for all of you who don't like the flashing lights, what if your in a theater that doesn't have any sort of "sound system" in the lobby? Then what do we do?


 


chausman said:


> At least you don't have to worry about someone thinking it looked tacky.



I believe you misinterpreted the subject of my post and Shawncfer's quoted reply. We were referring to flashing auditorium house lights. That IS tacky, and I will stand by that. Lobby lights, while I am not opposed to flashing, I agree with cpf that there are other good ways to get the crowd's attention. Proactive ushers can help out a lot with this. I feel like the transition in to a show should be as seemless as possible. Maybe you guys could look in to running a dedicated line to power a monitor in the lobby that can play some sort of chime or preshow music.


Les said:


> I NEVER flash the *house* lights. Way too tacky for my blood.




Shawncfer said:


> THANK YOU! Finally someone agrees with me! I hate High Schools that Flash *house* lights.


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## chausman

Les said:


> I believe you misinterpreted the subject of my post and Shawncfer's quoted reply. We were referring to flashing auditorium house lights. That IS tacky, and I will stand by that. Lobby lights, while I am not opposed to flashing, I agree with cpf that there are other good ways to get the crowd's attention. Proactive ushers can help out a lot with this. I feel like the transition in to a show should be as seemless as possible. Maybe you guys could look in to running a dedicated line to power a monitor in the lobby that can play some sort of chime or preshow music.


Yes, I misread what you had said. I agree that flashing house lights isn't a very good choice. Not necessarily because is looks tacky (which it does), but because, and especially in our house, the aisles have three different heights of stairs and with up to about 500+ people trying to find their seats with lights going on and off is not good. I did read that to fast. And, in my personal opinion, since we are a non-profit group, I like having someone there at the start of the show opposed to just a recording. Thats just my opinion.


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## Les

chausman said:


> Yes, I misread what you had said. I agree that flashing house lights isn't a very good choice. Not necessarily because is looks tacky (which it does), but because, and especially in our house, the aisles have three different heights of stairs and with up to about 500+ people trying to find their seats with lights going on and off is not good. I did read that to fast. And, in my personal opinion, since we are a non-profit group, I like having someone there at the start of the show opposed to just a recording. Thats just my opinion.


 
Glad we got that cleared up! Good call on the safety aspect. That is a real danger as flashing lights can be disorienting; especially for older patrons. I feel like it also sends a subliminal signal of alarm, or maybe that the power is going out, which can make some people uneasy. Definitely not one of the more soothing approaches . 

I agree with you on live curtain speeches. My community did that for years and it was a great way to engage the audiences, while informing them of upcoming events as well as giving thanks to all who worked on the show. It's nice for them to be able to know first-hand how the ticket sales and subscription funds are being used, and in general, people just like real human interaction.


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## JChenault

Type best method I have ever seen for getting the audience to move from the lobby to the house was a six foot decorated pole with five jingle bells attached on spring wire to the top. The house manager took a turn through the lobby gently shaking the staff up and down, and the bells encouraged the patrons 

The other clue I have seen to tell the house we are about to start is to close the door or curtains leading into the house. (this of course supposes that closing the doors are obvious )


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## DotNM

Hi all,

I'm just wondering what type of pre-recorded announcements everyone has - both venue and performance specific. If you can share some of your script/wording for them, that would also be appreciated.

Some I've thought of include:

Pre-performance announcement (something along the lines of "we're beginning shortly, please no smoking, turn off your cell phones, etc.)
Evacuation announcement (e.g. "please evacuate using nearest exit", etc.)
I'd like to create some for my venue but am wanting to try to cover everything I can.


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## lwinters630

Please take out your cell phones, our ushers will be collecting them shortly.


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## dbaxter

http://www.baxeldata.com/Files/firemarsh.wav The forum doesn't seem to allow uploading anything but pictures, so I put it on my own server. It's very simple - pointing out the exits, no pictures, no phones. Smoking is not allowed in any public building, so that's not mentioned.


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## kiwitechgirl

Currently: "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to My Fair Lady. Please take a moment to switch your cellphones off and be advised that photographing or recording the performance in any way is strictly prohibited. Thankyou, and enjoy the show." We don't actually have FOH announcements for the house for whatever reason - just bells which usually start ringing five minutes prior. 

All the pre-show announcements I've used have run something along the lines of "Welcome to xxxxx theatre. This evening's (or afternoon's) performance will commence in 30 minutes; the house is now open and you are invited to take your seats." Usually then have fifteen and five minute versions of that, then "Ladies and Gentlemen, this evening's performance is about to commence. Please take your seats immediately."


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## flowalex999

One place that I have done stuff for uses pre-recorded for the big shows that fit the theme eg they just did wonderland and the preshow announcement included things like "smoking and the use of E cigs is strictly forbidden execpt for out hooka smoking caterpillar for whom it is strictly medicinal" as well as "in the event of an emergency please do not follow a rabbit down a hole, it creates problems for you and paperwork for us" And it ends with XXXXX presents (in this case) Wonderland. I just get the file that is done in advance


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## StradivariusBone

This questions comes up every so often, but one I've always wondered about is what do you all use for playback of said announcements? We use QLab as a media server, but don't keep that laptop in the booth 24/7. We've got a CD player for house music, but I'd love something that could remain in the booth and run stuff consistently, but be easy to alter if need be. I'm wondering if this might be a good fit for a raspberry pi?


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## RonHebbard

StradivariusBone said:


> This questions comes up every so often, but one I've always wondered about is what do you all use for playback of said announcements? We use QLab as a media server, but don't keep that laptop in the booth 24/7. We've got a CD player for house music, but I'd love something that could remain in the booth and run stuff consistently, but be easy to alter if need be. I'm wondering if this might be a good fit for a raspberry pi?


I'm old and decrepit but I was in love with MiniDiscs right up until my mini-stroke robbed me of my vision. I own three Sony's with keyboard inputs and used HHB's 80 minute discs exclusively. I LOVED the "Auto Pause" at the end of each track preventing any of the decks from running into their next cuts. That, combined with "Auto Cue" which would reliably park them at the precise beginning of audio on each track. For most productions I'd run two players with 40 minutes of pre-show on one and 25 minutes of interval plus playout on the second. This normally left me enough time on the two discs to store all of my effects and incidental music for any given production. I moved to Minidiscs from 1/4", 1/2" and 1" open reels. No. I never used an Edison cylinder player for effects; I'm not quite THAT old. I always considered cassettes beneath my dignity, suitable only for 40 minute tracks of background wind, rain or crickets, etcetera. I also loved that I could operate the MiniDisc decks with their timers in count down mode and being able to type titles and notes into their displays on a disc, and per track, basis was also extremely useful. 
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.


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## GreyWyvern

RonHebbard said:


> I'm old and decrepit but I was in love with MiniDiscs right up until my mini-stroke robbed me of my vision. I own three Sony's with keyboard inputs and used HHB's 80 minute discs exclusively. I LOVED the "Auto Pause" at the end of each track preventing any of the decks from running into their next cuts. That, combined with "Auto Pause" which would reliably park them at the precise beginning of audio on each track. For most productions I'd run two players with 40 minutes of pre-show on one and 25 minutes of interval plus playout on the second. This normally left me enough time on the two discs to store all of my effects and incidental music for any given production. I moved to Minidiscs from 1/4", 1/2" and 1" open reels. No. I never used an Edison cylinder player for effects; I'm not quite THAT old. I always considered cassettes beneath my dignity, suitable only for 40 minute tracks of background wind, rain or crickets, etcetera. I also loved that I could operate the MiniDisc decks with their timers in count down mode and being able to type titles and notes into their displays on a disc, and per track, basis was also extremely useful.
> Toodleoo!
> Ron Hebbard.


Loved MiniDisc and still do (and I'm _not_ old or decrepit!). I used them for the community theatre I was the TD for right up until I quit a couple years ago. I have a full size deck that I would pull from my home system and take to the venue. I also have a portable one that I would hook a mic up to for recording sound effects, like city sounds, gun shots, fireworks, etc. It worked great as a very compact and versatile recording rig. We would tend to record most of our pre-show music ourselves. It was done on a mid 1990's Clavinova that I hooked my MD deck up to. I had fun doing all of that. Sure made things easy. You definitely couldn't do that with CDs. I know they would be obsolete now anyway, much like CDs, but I always wished they would have caught on better since IMHO they were better than CDs. My first car was old enough that it didn't have a CD deck, so I used a cassette adaptor and would plug my portable MDiscman into it. I loved the auto record feature of MD. Connect the MD deck to the CD deck, put the MD in record standby, press play on the CD, and walk away. After the CD was done, you had a MD of the CD with all the track marks automatically inserted.
Okay, I'm rambling and should stop. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.

The group I was with, the director would do the pre-show announcements live. It was always fun because it would be tied into the show, like the Wonderland example by @flowalex999, and would include some shenanigan or joke. For instance, going back to the Wonderland example, the director would have been smoking a fake cigarette while telling the audience to not do the same. Have fun with it!


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## Morte615

I ran across this article the other day, possibly from here. But someone took a Raspberry Pi, put it in a rack case, added some buttons and now has a Intermission audio controller. This could be utilized for just about any type of playback needed actually.
http://makezine.com/projects/intermission-light-sound-control-raspberry-pi/


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## StradivariusBone

I'm old enough to recall the hey day of the MD. When I went to college for my music ed degree, it was an extremely popular format amongst my fellow music majors since it was relatively cheap and easy to record (with decent fidelity) oneself practicing to playback for self-critique or auditions or what-have-you. This was just before the Zoom recorders really took off and solid state recording devices were still very cost-prohibitive and somewhat bulky. For a poor college kid like me (and several others) even MD was out of budget, so we resorted to tape cassettes for recording practice sessions. Sometimes even MICROCASSETTES! It really was a shame to see the MD not take off as it seemed like a really good bridge between CD's and floppies in terms of data storage, but physical media was already starting to become less desirable even then.


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## StradivariusBone

Morte615 said:


> http://makezine.com/projects/intermission-light-sound-control-raspberry-pi/



That's essentially what I was envisioning. You could use SFTP to update it and never have to open the Pi up once it's up.


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## derekleffew

Nah, wanna play like the big boys? Just drop three grand on http://360systems.com/products/instant-replay-2/ .


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## JerseyMatt

Years ago (before I joined) our community theater had a member with a great voice, who recorded a whole load of "parts" which we use to assemble our pre-show announcement (I assemble them in Audacity and then simply run the file as a cue). It has a whole bunch of options, but the one we usually run goes like this: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. Russell Community Theater would like to welcome you to tonight's performance, and remind everyone of a few things that will make the experience better for everyone. Please take this time to turn off all cell phones, pagers, beeping watches, and other noisemaking devices. Smoking is not permitted during the performance. Please, no flash photography, it is distracting to the actors and audience alike. Recording of this show in any format is strictly forbidden by the copyright holders. The actors will be greeting you after the show in front of the stage. Thank you for your attendance this evening and enjoy the show."


Morte615 said:


> I ran across this article the other day, possibly from here. But someone took a Raspberry Pi, put it in a rack case, added some buttons and now has a Intermission audio controller. This could be utilized for just about any type of playback needed actually.
> http://makezine.com/projects/intermission-light-sound-control-raspberry-pi/



That is pretty nifty, I'm going to play with that one!


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## AlexDonkle

derekleffew said:


> Nah, wanna play like the big boys? Just drop three grand on http://360systems.com/products/instant-replay-2/ .



Those are awesome for Radio and TV audio work. For fixed installs the Roland AR-200R or Tascam HS-20 are pretty nice (cheaper than the 360 stuff, but still "budget friendly").


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## Brenden Friedel

Does anybody have any pre-recorded professional sounding voice overs? I:E Ladies and Gentlemen please take your seat the show will begin shortly or in 5 mins.


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## Jay Ashworth

There are a few floating around, or I could record some for you.


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## Brenden Friedel

Jay Ashworth said:


> There are a few floating around, or I could record some for you.


Yes PLEASEEE I can't find any


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## Jay Ashworth

I should have a free hour this weekend.
10 minutes? just 5? Language?


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## Brenden Friedel

Jay Ashworth said:


> I should have a free hour this weekend.
> 10 minutes? just 5? Language?


English Please and if possible both 10 and 5


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## TimMc

Brenden Friedel said:


> English Please and if possible both 10 and 5



If this is for your local venue or non-profit theatre company you might ask a local TV or radio celebrity to record the announcements for you.


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## Noah Kimmel

Once our director gives the go ahead to production to start in about 5 minutes we go from full house lights to half intensity, then play a short clip that says "
Good evening, and welcome to the (School name) Performing Arts Center. A few words before tonights show begins. First please note the four emergency exits, two to your rear and two to your left and your right. Second, there is ABSOLUTELY NO food or drink allowed in the auditorium. Photography is allowed, however out of respect and safety of our performers, we ask that you turn off the flash. Last of all, please silence your cell phone and electronic devices, and enjoy the show." This works almost every time, unless something unplanned occurs and the show starts later, then it turns into a long time of waiting in silence, or people start talking again. I have the recording on a CD in the player, as well as it gets loaded at the top of our QLab show for every event. We just had a girl in one of our ensembles that had a great speaking voice record it.


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## Brenden Friedel

TimMc said:


> If this is for your local venue or non-profit theatre company you might ask a local TV or radio celebrity to record the announcements for you.


This is for things such as rentals in our venues. I.E concerts and recitals


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## Brenden Friedel

Noah Kimmel said:


> Once our director gives the go ahead to production to start in about 5 minutes we go from full house lights to half intensity, then play a short clip that says "
> Good evening, and welcome to the (School name) Performing Arts Center. A few words before tonights show begins. First please note the four emergency exits, two to your rear and two to your left and your right. Second, there is ABSOLUTELY NO food or drink allowed in the auditorium. Photography is allowed, however out of respect and safety of our performers, we ask that you turn off the flash. Last of all, please silence your cell phone and electronic devices, and enjoy the show." This works almost every time, unless something unplanned occurs and the show starts later, then it turns into a long time of waiting in silence, or people start talking again. I have the recording on a CD in the player, as well as it gets loaded at the top of our QLab show for every event. We just had a girl in one of our ensembles that had a great speaking voice record it.



We did the same thing for our last production but the lights dim when the house doors shut and had the cast pre-record a speech IE in the heights in a spanish style voice to go with the theme. I would like something for rentals such as recitals


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## TimMc

Brenden, what's keeping you from recording your announcements locally? That's why I earlier suggested in another thread finding a local radio or TV personality that has a fondness for theater or musicals to do the voice work - a familiar voice covering photography, recording, emergency egress, etc - with text that applies to your specific venue.

One theater company I've work with has the Sound Designer record "this year's announcements" when the first batch of sweetening recording is done. The SD picks a actor or actress with the vocal presence he wants and they record it after the singing parts are completed.


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