# Putting your venue's name on outside produced events



## Footer (Jun 27, 2010)

Most venues in the country both produce/promote events in house as well as bring in paying rentals with outside promoters. Many times outside promoters will bring in their own production and not use any of the house gear or crew beyond the bare minimum requirement. This arrangement can either provide better production or worse. The general public who comes and sees shows at your venue attaches the quality of the show to the venue, not the company that produces it. How does your venue deal with events produced in your venue that are not up to typical standards of your venue? Do you think a poorly produced event in your venue by an outside promoter can hurt the venue overall? Will you allow a renter to bring/put/light/amplify a show element onstage that you yourself would not put onstage? Does your venue enforce any quality standards for all events? For this discussion lets keep talent out of the discussion and focus on the quality of the production only. Also assume that safety standards are followed by all parties to the highest degree possible.

sent from my HTC Incredible


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## mstaylor (Jun 27, 2010)

Footer said:


> Most venues in the country both produce/promote events in house as well as bring in paying rentals with outside promoters. Many times outside promoters will bring in their own production and not use any of the house gear or crew beyond the bare minimum requirement. This arrangement can either provide better production or worse. The general public who comes and sees shows at your venue attaches the quality of the show to the venue, not the company that produces it. How does your venue deal with events produced in your venue that are not up to typical standards of your venue? Do you think a poorly produced event in your venue by an outside promoter can hurt the venue overall? Will you allow a renter to bring/put/light/amplify a show element onstage that you yourself would not put onstage? Does your venue enforce any quality standards for all events? For this discussion lets keep talent out of the discussion and focus on the quality of the production only. Also assume that safety standards are followed by all parties to the highest degree possible.
> 
> 
> sent from my HTC Incredible



In my venue we are all rentals with very little of our own equipment. We don't place any standards on how they produce their show. We do insists that any additional cew over their direct techs are house crew. If itis a circus that insists on rigging their own live acts, we require our rigger to supervise in the grid to make sure it is safe and nothing is taken. What we do take a hit on is advertisement. Some shows hire our in house staff to do the buys but others do it all.


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## erosing (Jun 28, 2010)

The place I frequented most, was their productions only until this past year. The only, and I do mean only reason they allowed an outside rental was because it was an old board member and director who was very well respected. Everyone else that has asked has been politely told no. 

If memory serves me correctly, they did allow the venue to be rented out many years ago and it resulted in more costs to fix the place back up to working order than what came in, also there was a risky production (the venue tends to serve a "well aged" crowd) that did not go over well.


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## CSCTech (Jul 5, 2010)

The only outside productions we generally host are dance recitals and hypnotists.
As for the hypnotists we play songs for them from the house sytem and give them a mic that's all they useally want or need.

As for the dance recitals, don't get me started.
Non of them are big enough that they have their own lighting setup so we alwayse supply lighting for them, usally full white wash and maybe some color thrown in and blackout between sets. Except one of them went crazy and I had to tell them I just couldn't do it with what we had at the time and it being like, an hour before the show.
Most of the dance academys bring their own sound system. Usually consisting of a portable powered mixer and two small speakers.
I can never seem to get them to use the house and it kills me sitting there listining to it when I know if I was running it through the house it would sound so much better. Non of them have any experience with live audio they just know how to setup their system and get it playing, so I am usually showing them how to do something and occasionally running down to the stage to help during the show.
Not only would the house sound better but it would make my life so much easier because I have no clue when the song it ending, so its pretty much jsut guessing when to blackout, and not like I can setup any cues since the rehersal is the day of the show.
We are getting a new sound system this year and followspot, so, they should want to use the house anyways, and if they want to use the followspot, which I wouldn't think fo letting them touch of course, I might as well just tell them we need to run their sound or they can with our supervision through out system because running lighting and a followspot and having no clue what is going on will be hell.

/End rant 

I just think that if the house system is better, use it.


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## jstroming (Jul 5, 2010)

Another opinion-

I don't run a venue so I am a little biased. I do touring work where the guys on the road crew know the show better than the house guys do, take that into consideration. From Production's (promoter/producer whatever) standpoint:

A> Cost. If I can do it for cheaper just as well as you can in-house, I'm bringing it in. I have been charged per-connection to patch in to the house system. Even had a guy try to charge me $250 ($50 "per connection") for feeder ON TOP OF the cost of the electric service. Guess who won that one HAHA. I tried to tell him that he should triple the cost of each XLR connection because technically it was 3 wires. He didn't laugh. In all seriousness, I tour, I bring it with me, unless you offer to patch it in to the house system and it works the first time, I'm going to use my own stuff. Plus, my labor rates are almost always cheaper than the houses because I'm not taking a cut off the top like the house normally is. Unfortunately sometimes these house guys make like $15/hr and the house is taking $40/hr off the top. I'm paying $55/hr, and the poor house technicians never even know it.

B> Time. Unless you have fixtures pre-hung for me prior to my arrival, it will most likely take more time for the house to:
1> Have the electrician find the house TD
2> Have the house TD delegate to someone to go get the fixture from the basement
3> Have the stagehand come back upstairs because he forgot the keys to the cage in the basement.
4> Have the stagehand go back downstairs because he forget which barrel he was getting.
5> Finally have the right fixture, and then hang it on the wrong pipe, etc etc etc
Obviously this is an exaggeration, but honestly this isnt too far removed from what does happen pretty frequently...of course not in YOUR facility, but it does happen 

C> Comfort. I'm not one of those crazy "my leko is better than your leko" weirdos, but some of the guys I tour with are. They would prefer to use the equipment they use every day, even if it's not as good as the houses equipment.

And believe it or not, I don't really think people think less of your venue if an outside show comes in and doesn't "do your facility justice" by producing a good show. I think people will judge your venue more based on whether or not the bathrooms have toilet paper, or how courteous your crew is when patrons ask how much time it "took you to set all this stuff up".

I don't think the Bleacher Creatures yelled at the MLB cameraman because you had to walk through 2" of sewage to get to the stall in the old yankees stadium!! Ok....maybe THEY did


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## shiben (Jul 6, 2010)

The major issue here I can see is if your venue both produces its own shows and also brings in shows, such as the one im working for this summer does. People in the town the theatre is located in expect a certain level of show, and if the show is lame, it reflects poorly on the theatre, because people associate a certain quality of product from the theatre itself, not the "venue" neccisarily, and when the theatre company brings in a show that sucks, it reflects on the company as a whole, regardless of their association with the quality of the show. In addition, its for sure that in a town with one or two major venues, if a show comes in thats really poor, people who go to the show will associate the show with the theatre. Most average citizens are not really up on how producers work and whatnot, just this is where I go see shows, and if there are three bad ones, then i will go see shows somewhere else, or go to the movies. Its a real phenomonen.


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## gafftaper (Jul 14, 2010)

shiben said:


> The major issue here I can see is if your venue both produces its own shows and also brings in shows, such as the one im working for this summer does. People in the town the theatre is located in expect a certain level of show, and if the show is lame, it reflects poorly on the theatre, because people associate a certain quality of product from the theatre itself, not the "venue" neccisarily, and when the theatre company brings in a show that sucks, it reflects on the company as a whole, regardless of their association with the quality of the show. In addition, its for sure that in a town with one or two major venues, if a show comes in thats really poor, people who go to the show will associate the show with the theatre. Most average citizens are not really up on how producers work and whatnot, just this is where I go see shows, and if there are three bad ones, then i will go see shows somewhere else, or go to the movies. Its a real phenomonen.


 
First off if you haven't seen it check out my posts about the worst concert tech I've ever seen. 

Which leads me to this thread. As I said at the end of that thread, I would have never gone to another event at that facility if I hadn't contacted the T.D. and found out that this was purely a rental and the venue had nothing to do with the tech. I would have completley written off the facility as a bunch of amatures charging too much and it would have been a touring group's fault. That's a real problem. 

On the other side, I can't tell you how many rental events I've worked where the renter has no idea what they want, makes terrible choices and eventually I just throw up my hands and say to myself, "If you don't want to listen to me and you want your show to be a disaster there's nothing I can do to stop you." But then that reflects back on me and my venue doesn't it. It's a dangerous trap and I don't see an easy way out of it. You can argue with the renter and make them mad when you tell them they don't know what they are doing. Potentially damaging your reputation with other renters. Or you can let them screw up and your venue's image takes a hit.

I want a sign I can put out in the lobby that says, "The technical director of this theater takes no responsibility for the crap you are about to see."


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## NickVon (Jul 14, 2010)

Interesting. We are a middle of the road venue. We have frequent rentals of our space. There are some that come back year to year and produce multiple shows in a season using our Venue. We will usually to a small degree promote the shows from groups that we know have put quality on in the past. We Also "bring in" and co-produce other acts on occasion. The advantage being is usually we are providing all the technical stuff for these productions an i get to stress out to make sure the show meats my quality expectations for our co-pro's. (being the person mostly designing/running lights and sound. (sometimes with a student workers/high school helpers)

For the one off Church concert/shows, or piano recitals or conferences we won't promote these events with in our mailings and newsletters/facebook page/ website etc.
Mostly because the only stake we have in these shows is the rental cost for the venue.

From surveys, we've learned that we don't have much cross over Audience either. We get people coming to the various musical theatre groups that come in but the distinction between those kind of shows and the people that come for the band concerts or church choirs or Shakespeare shows as well are very few, and are 'arts-wise' enough to understand the rental's group autonomy from the Venue

So yes we will put our name on some rental groups that come, All Co-productions (but that because we have stake in ticket sales.) But your group needs to earn our quality seal of approval before we advertise to "our venue's" patrons to your shows ;-)


gafftaper said:


> I want a sign I can put out in the lobby that says, "The technical director of this theater takes no responsibility for the crap you are about to see."



or the back of your T-shirt. I get this way to with some of the way home grown and far from even decent community theatres. I offer to help the best way i can, but if they aren't prepared or together enough, or open-minded with their production, I try not to let it bother me. Knowing as stated before that for these shows where this is an issue won't really have audience from our quailty shows coming to see it, or even reviewers for that matter.


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## derekleffew (Jul 14, 2010)

Agree with NickVon. I used to run a road house in a predominately Jewish suburb. We'd have Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah services and the next week, an Arabian concert, as well as many other nations I'd never heard of. We also presented a season of our own shows of A-/B+ talent, and the local symphony. I would occasionally express concern over the "reputation" of the venue due to the "quality" of the productions, but upper management felt the audiences were distinct enough that it didn't matter. And they were likely correct, as the organization was able to build a new facility and remains financially solvent, from what I can tell.

Every "receiving house" faces this conundrum, but I suspect few worry about it. The bad shows won't last long, or have enough of an audience, to overshadow the hits.


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