# Projector and school usage, Changing College Culture?



## NickVon (Nov 20, 2010)

So. A little Background.

I work at a theatre Venue that is now primarily a rental facility to groups out side of the college to which we are attached. This is the goal that I and my boss the managing director have been working towards for the last several years. To take this great little 300 seat venue put in the equipment upgrades that it needs and turn it into a; if not profitable building for the college, something which isn't such a drain. We are no operating at being booked every week with exceptions for holidays and during the sumer break. 

This has lead to a bit of a clash of cultures between, us and the rest of the college community. the various clubs and organizations on campus still see us as their play ground for what ever little events their clubs want to do, or some guest lecture that another department wants to have and they want to use our projector screen stage and lighting etc. ( there is in fact another technology Lecture room on campus much better and more expensively equipped for at least these lectures, though only 80 some seats. I Digress.)

Club groups, Admissions, Resident Life and the Nursing departments get upsets when they have to book, or adjust dates for their events (which we still strive to accommodated), yet end up frustrated when we have a theatre group booked arleady in dates that might want to switch to.

Getting long winded....This leads to our department budget resources and i'm interested on feed back from other facility TD's. The IT department on campus refuses to, maintain, update, replace our current projector equipment. Essentially stateing, "we have never maintained your projector its comes out of your budget, we don't have anything to do with it, leave us a lone." It is an older projector now and had good life but no has noticeable burn in / yellowing on the edges. IT maintains, updates and replaces every other projector on campus except for ours. Granted ours is larger and more costly then the conference room projectors throughout the rest of the campus.

Now on to the question and feedback i'm looking for. Our department has decided that we do need a replacement projector. It will be coming out of what we get to keep as our banked money that we make during the season, that we get to hold over from budget year to budget year.

We will bill any rental groups for the use of the new projector for "lamp hours" as a way of maintaining filters and money for replacement lamps. I would like to extend this cost to any and all groups on campus that wish to use the new 9000 dollar projector as well. (This Includes a Creative Arts and Technology (CAT) dept. that has a weekly lecture in our space.) I plan on mounting the new projector in a new locations that will give it better clearence over peoples heads and stage; and leaving the current old projector in place.

Are there any good ways to broach this subject at the turn of the new school year with the school events like the CAT, Admissions, and monthly Faculty meetings, Club events? I was planning on leaving the older projector inplace as possibly the "FREE" one if people wanted to live with the image quality.

This is in general about how to move into the next step of culture change with charging on campus affiliates with "extra" equipment. If the IT department supported and moved to budget for a new projector from their department I don't think i'd bring this up at all as it'd be a school installed hardware and free to use by the school. (though still would charge outside rentals.) As IT and the school refuses this option this is the route we think we would like to take. Thoughts?

I know at some very large schools every Department would have to pay to use their theater venues for things like their department graduation ceremonies, i'm told that Towson is this way. Nobody uses their theatre spaces for free, not even the drama and music departments.

TLDR How would I approach the subject of having other departments start paying for equipment which has previously been "Free" to use for on campus affiliated groups.

Keeping in mind that my budget now goes to maintaining and upgrading for use for our rentals, and they all bring in their own projectors when needed for their shows. Meaning that updating to a new projector isn't benefiting the actual mission of being a viable rental house (though sorta if the other rental groups want to use our new projector, I suppose) I suppose i want to throw this in with the same rules that we have that state just because you "on campus group" book the theatre does not mean we grant you rights to use the green room, cyc, or using anything but our lighting Rep Plot.

[EDIT] if Mods think this might be better in the facilities forum let me know.


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## mstaylor (Nov 25, 2010)

Let me see if I am following everything. 
You are trying to make your theatre self suficient. Do you take money for any of your budget from the school? If so what percentage of your budget comes from them and what do you use it for? It sounds like the way it set up you will be buying the projector. Not having IT involved is not always a bad thing. 
As far as interdepartmental use, that is a little touchier. As long as you are being funded by the school, you will have to supply the building to others, under what rules is the big thing. Any facility has to have a schedule and the other depts need to understand that. Now, if you have a rental obviously they others can't expect you to bump it. However, to an extent, the opposite is true, if they have it booked for a function then they shouldn't get bumped. If it's a staff meeting or something that can easily be moved then they need to be flexable. If it's something where they are bringing an outside speaker or similar then they shouldn' be bumped. They are probably on somebody's elses schedule. 
When they come in they should probably get the facility at no charge but they should have to pay the techs that need to be there. They should not be using the sound, lights or video without your techs there. If the college does not want that to happen then they need to supply your equipment replacement.


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