# Well... there it is.



## tdtastic

https://www.playbill.com/article/broadway-will-go-dark-amid-coronavirus-concerns


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## Quentin (Cue)

Oh wow...I kinda saw this coming with the theater industry. A couple of my places that I work at are already closing down for X amount of time, so I'm kind of panicking about my upcoming work situation right now.


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## tdtastic

I wish there was an "oh sh*t" emoji on here. I am so thankful that I work for a state institution. Many of my theatre friends are going to be royally screwed by this whole situation..... Meanwhile, us regional folk have to weigh out the options to continue with productions already in the works or to cancel. yeeesh.


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## Darin

There are award-winning designers out there asking for Venmo donations since they are losing thousands of dollars in gigs


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## SteveB

Our Dept. of Theater cancelled rehearsals and events thru end of semester. Music recitals tried to keep running under a stipulation of no larger a “gathering” of 50, with no clue if that meant audience or included performers and staff. In any event the department is shedding events in a continual flurry of e-mails. And they decided no public attendance.


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## tdtastic

We have a show in rehearsals with the set build to commence on Monday - we were told today to postpone construction until further notice....


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## SchneiderLD18

Most of the shows here in Michigan are canceled. A lot of stress in our industry right now.


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## Les

We have a set build in progress too. Today the box office capped ticket sales to 150 per performance, but I have a feeling that this is only a stopgap solution.


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## BillESC

My Saturday concert with Leahy just cancelled.


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## BillConnerFASTC

My weekend event was cancelled so consolation concert in hotel lobby. Live on Facebook


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## ship

Get projects where you can was last week.


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## techieman33

We haven't had anything canceled yet. It's probably coming in the next couple of days though. The tour that was in today has had their next couple of shows canceled, so they're all out of work for the next couple of weeks. And they're talking about canceling the rest of the tour.


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## Lynnchesque

Yep, two gigs this weekend just went poof. And I just bought new show blacks too.


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## derekleffew

Seems like a good time for stagehands to consider a career change.








Live Nation, AEG Suspend Artist Touring Until April as Coronavirus Spreads

Companies also align with agents to develop live-music industry’s unified response to COVID-19



www.rollingstone.com


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## derekleffew

Cirque du Soleil cuts its show schedule on Las Vegas Strip

Cirque’s schedule shift includes “O” at Bellagio, the company’s top-selling production that moved to two shows a night, seven nights a week last December.



www.reviewjournal.com





Also previously announced:







Cirque du Soleil halts touring shows in coronavirus response

Cirque du Soliel has told its Vegas employees the company “is facing an increased financial pressure on our operations due to this situation.”



www.reviewjournal.com


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## Footer

My venue is closed and we are clearing the calendar 2 weeks at a time. I assume dance recital season will be done as most studios are also closing early. So, that puts us out to July.


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## sk8rsdad

We're likely to get there very soon, if an unconfirmed tweet is to be believed. I'm waiting on an official statement from the authorities before kicking the "refund tickets and recoup costs" processes into gear.

... and we're there.


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## BillESC

My concert for the 28th of March has just cancelled. So I won't be working on my 70th birthday.


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## derekleffew

Okay. Now this thing is getting serious.








National Rifle Association cancels its 2020 gathering over coronavirus

(TOWNHALL) The National Rifle Association, America's oldest civil rights organization, announced Thursday evening it has canceled the members' annual meeting in Nashville. The annual gathering, which hosts 80,000 attendees each year, was scheduled for mid-April. With our 149th Annual Meeting...



www.wnd.com


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## Van

derekleffew said:


> Okay. Now this thing is getting serious.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> National Rifle Association cancels its 2020 gathering over coronavirus
> 
> (TOWNHALL) The National Rifle Association, America's oldest civil rights organization, announced Thursday evening it has canceled the members' annual meeting in Nashville. The annual gathering, which hosts 80,000 attendees each year, was scheduled for mid-April. With our 149th Annual Meeting...
> 
> 
> 
> www.wnd.com


Well.... shoot.


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## FMEng

That's the best news I've heard this week.


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## Jay Ashworth

My primary house is a state JC, so we're dark now til the 6th; we'll see how long that extends, if at all.

Hopefully, we'll see some work calls in there for the 6 person overhire list. Depends whether they'll let us in the building, I guess.

A lot of the local houses made the call starting yesterday, so at least their casts got to do a full performance...


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## Dionysus

Everything is cancelled around here for at LEAST a week. most until April or May.
Yesterday morning (Friday the 13th) the Ontario Health ministry suggested no gatherings over 250 people, and just about everything just shut down in our world.
The *Grand Theatre* cancelled the rest of their season ON OPENING NIGHT OF "ROOM" (a co-pro with Mirvish; and a Premiere) with a much-awaited new work GROW in the shop being built. I had literally just finished programming the kids show to be running down in the Studio. The guys in the shop are going to finish building GROW, and the Spriet (Main Stage) guys get to do ROOM one or two more times to record it. Hopefully Mirvish's season still allows from ROOM to be presented later. It's heartbreaking for everyone involved as so much has gone into developing this show from the book with the original Author along for the ride.
The 100 Schools project (the aforementioned kids show "Junos Reward") has been in the office renamed to the 21 schools project (how many schools they made it into before cancellation).

My other theatre has postponed their March break kids show until May (just finished programming THAT too), and we are waiting to pull the trigger to cancel most of what remains of the season... While might totally ruin all our plans for the future.

The London Fringe Festival (I am TD there too) is also waiting to cancel, and hoping to God that we don't have to as it is months away.

Lots of stuff way into May has been cancelled around here. So many people in our industry out of work, and even teachers returning from march break are loosing out on two weeks of work now as an unpaid quarantine.

Its going to get a lot worse before it gets better my friends.
Stay Strong,
Stay Healthy.


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## Darin

We canceled the rest of the semester's shows (two plays and a dance concert). Current plan is to build out the main stage play and put it up first thing Fall semester


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## sk8rsdad

Our next production is postponed. My guess is we will try to remount it in the summer. My fingers are falling off responding to all the email in the last couple of days. We're hoping the May production will go off as scheduled but that planning can wait a couple of days for the dust to settle.


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## Jay Ashworth

Has anyone heard anything about licensors not being idiots about run timing and such, yet?


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## sk8rsdad

Well, there's this thread....




DPS, MTI & Concord Theatricals are being proactive about COVID-19

DPS is making it easy to reschedule and is trying to secure streaming rights. Read their announcement here.



www.controlbooth.com


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## Les

As I predicted, we have cleared our schedule until early May. The current production, with a nearly-completed set, will be postponed until we reopen. To facilitate this, we have canceled two rentals, a handful of events, a Theatre School production, as well as pushing back the currently cast but not-yet-in-production of Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. One show, Blythe Spirit, was set to perform in early June but was not yet cast so it has been canceled. 

The theatre will be closed for all-but-essential operations. I'm hoping I can use some time to get ahead of some maintenance and housekeeping items. I'm also hoping that this projected schedule is accurate and not overly ambitious.


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## BillESC

Looks like the wedding I was going to light in April isn't going to happen.


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## Playajackal

San Francisco Bay Area now on Shelter in Place. Had plans to keep working on shows with students in small groups, now that's off too.


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## ship

Why would a licenceer be first to cancel - money is in the contract for dates paid for. Up to you to reschedule if possible.


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## mbrown3039

ship said:


> Why would a licenceer be first to cancel - money is in the contract for dates paid for. Up to you to reschedule if possible.



Not at this point. Once the WHO declared a pandemic, "force majeure" clauses kicked in. That is why so many leagues/organizations/events cancelled on Wed/Thu last week -- they were all waiting for that to happen. Everyone has an out of their contract now -- hopefully the insurance companies don't use it, too.


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## Michael K

Ah, that's where that is from, I just saw it sited here:







Coronavirus: Cirque du Soleil lays off more than half its staff





montrealgazette-com.cdn.ampproject.org





I'm really starting to wonder whether I will be getting a summer job this year, and am very worried about all of our brethren (and sisters!) that live off paychecks. (Anyone know decent forklift/aerial lift jobs?) ☹


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## mbrown3039

Michael K said:


> ... (Anyone know decent forklift/aerial lift jobs?) ☹



Amazon is hiring 100K people nationwide -- I would assume some of those jobs would be forklift drivers/material handlers. m


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## TimMc

mbrown3039 said:


> Amazon is hiring 100K people nationwide -- I would assume some of those jobs would be forklift drivers/material handlers. m


And the closest Amazon facility to me is 100 miles. Hefty commute from a 3rd tier city...


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## Kevin Statham

We are in the first week of our 2 week spring break. This is my time to get my spring break cleaning and maintenance done it the theatre. So far we have only lost one drama production for another school and 3 weeks of our church rental. The church may turn into a weekly webcast from the theatre in April. We are under a no gatherings larger than 50 people restriction, so we could still to the webcast....at least for now.
Other than church, we won't lose any rentals until May as the theatre is blocked out for our school's major drama production, which is up in the air at this point.
I have seen that a lot of the dance competitions that were supposed to happen locally are trying to push back into July, which if that works, will be great for the theatres as they usually have slower summers. Some are just closed for the summer. My concert bookings are mostly resheduling for the fall.


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## ship

I just lost 20% off my salary today (right before I asked for my late bi-annual raise). My Wife is down 32 hour 4-days a week (more like 30) hourly, but hopefully there won't be layoff's. Her department is basically dead in noting to do, mine between repairs and special projects is still always busy.


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## JimOC_1

Entry level openings in MD, not stage related. 
Materials Control Associates. Receiving, warehousing, inventory transfer. Low key team, fast pace job, full time with health benefits. If you have worked live shows you can handle the pace. The importance of data entry accuracy and following established procedures will surprise you if you have not worked in pharmaceutical manufacturing. I don't know the salaries but expect they are better than average.

tps://catalent.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/External/3/refreshFacet/318c8bb6f553100021d223d9780d30be

Many more positions for anyone with a science degree hidden in the closet. I know that all of the jobs posted for Maryland are real.


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## ship

Started last week at 50% pay with all my install projects now cancelled, and was really down in spirit because I was too high in pay and the wrong overall skill set to bring back to work.

Now due to fast typing skills and familiarity with our computer shipping/sales system, I was called back as an assistant full time shipping clerk in shipping out face shields. A few thousand a day shipped out in long days. 

Glad to work and help in the effort even if not asking about pay in doing so.


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## ppas11hum

mbrown3039 said:


> Not at this point. Once the WHO declared a pandemic, "force majeure" clauses kicked in. That is why so many leagues/organizations/events cancelled on Wed/Thu last week -- they were all waiting for that to happen. Everyone has an out of their contract now -- hopefully the insurance companies don't use it, too.



The issue now for many theatrical-touring & traveling event producers is that many venues are refusing to let productions out of contracts in May/June/July...meaning if the local authorities in a given market make an announcement on May 1st that large gatherings can startup again, and your show is scheduled to load-in May 2nd, the venue is refusing to let you out of the contract. However there is no way for the producers to know when the markets are going to open....many venues are basically taking a "screw you" attitude. Some aren't, but many are. My organization has had a mix of both. One example....I have a 5,000+ person event in Las Vegas mid-May....all people from out of town flying in. There is no way to know how many people are attending now, many groups of attendees want to see how long this drags out and if they will have the money to attend. The venue (huge hotel/casino) is refusing to acknowledge a cancellation. When asked "what if the ban on large gatherings is lifted May 17th, and our load-in starts May 18th?" their exact response to us was "you will be held to the terms of your contract". I know several other event organizers dealing with exactly the same thing. It's a catch 22; if you cancel you risk a lawsuit if the ban is lifted (hotels especially are disgusting, they will sue for anything) and if you want to chance the event happening you have a whole other set of issues. There are going to be a lot of lawsuits over this.


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## ship

Feel for ya! Hard especially for our industry to project even into summer and fall what is going to happen. 

I have two of six follow spots to compete service for and 6x more to get ready for the season. Getting paid for work already done for one venu, what to do with the others? And another parts were bought for a different venu and the customer has stopped responding to emails about what to do. Much less no tours Have a co-worker booked thru the summer in doing follow spot lamp installs for tours he is loosing out on, and a huge install project now on hold. 

Advice from most governors and medical professionals is to error on the side of safety and over compensate. This could become a legal concept for how to proceed as a hopeful but suck! concept in what to do and who gets stuck with what bill, than how to proceed. 

If nothing else, not stuck on a cruise ship hoping for a port.


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## ppas11hum

ship said:


> Advice from most governors and medical professionals is to error on the side of safety and over compensate.



This x1000. I get that many people aren’t, but I happen to be in the camp that it is not worth ruining the economy for the 0.001% that might die from this illness. I just don’t trust the government and experts when it comes to things like this...growing up on the east coast 99% of blizzards and hurricanes were the ones we were warned “this is the big one folks!!!”. People stopped trusting TV meteorologists. I get that this COULD be that 1% the experts are right about, but to me the risk is low enough that it is worth reopening the economy entirely on May 1st if things haven’t gotten worse. Just my opinion.

We were the first industry to shut down, and probably the LAST that will be allowed to open. Restaurants, hairs salons, and EVERYTHING else will be allowed to open first. Everyone I have spoken to says things will open sequentially by region....most likely tourist- & convention-reliant destinations (Vegas, Orlando, SoCal/Anaheim, etc) will open sooner than other markets if not hit too hard. All we can do is hope at this point! A lot of people’s summers (and further!) dependent on the next few weeks....


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## ship

We are in the same boat, my fear and thoughts is It's going to be a missed summer in planing for and instead hoping and planning for next better future.


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## ship

Reply sent for PM, perhaps others in Praise in Public, ... in Private - comments.


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## MNicolai

> I get that many people aren’t, but I happen to be in the camp that it is not worth ruining the economy for the 0.001% that might die from this illness. I just don’t trust the government and experts when it comes to things like this...growing up on the east coast 99% of blizzards and hurricanes were the ones we were warned “this is the big one folks!!!”. People stopped trusting TV meteorologists. I get that this COULD be that 1% the experts are right about, but to me the risk is low enough that it is worth reopening the economy entirely on May 1st if things haven’t gotten worse. Just my opinion.



I think we'll be lucky if we come out of this feeling like there was an overreaction. That would mean that the safer-at-home orders worked. There's a critical caveat here to comparing with meteorologists. Weather will happen the way it wants to no matter what the media reports. The forecasts and hype don't influence magnitude of the disaster except for a few more people might drive out of the way of it. In this instance, more media attention now has a direct impact on the magnitude of the tragedy. If the media treated this like it was seasonal flu and hardly covered it, we'd be in for a much worse result because people would not take social distancing seriously.

The projections right now are 50,000 - 135,000 Americans dying. Even if we lose only 50,000 people in a best case scenario, that will be traumatic milestone for the country. That 50k is among the most conservative estimates and the reluctance of states like my own to put effective safer-at-home orders in place will likely prolong the pandemic unnecessarily. By the time this is over, everyone will know people who fell seriously ill or died. Even if the virus was eradicated in 1 month, the psychological impact of that magnitude of deaths will prevent people from participating in crowded live events until they become more comfortable engaging in public crowds again.


ppas11hum said:


> We were the first industry to shut down, and probably the LAST that will be allowed to open. Restaurants, hairs salons, and EVERYTHING else will be allowed to open first. Everyone I have spoken to says things will open sequentially by region....most likely tourist- & convention-reliant destinations (Vegas, Orlando, SoCal/Anaheim, etc) will open sooner than other markets if not hit too hard. All we can do is hope at this point! A lot of people’s summers (and further!) dependent on the next few weeks....



This is a false choice for the entertainment industry. If they were allowed to open up tomorrow, hardly anyone would buy tickets for the next 3 months and venues would have a difficult time finding ushers and such to expose themselves to large crowds. Similarly, Broadway wasn't forced to shut down. Equity lobbied for it because their own members didn't feel safe.

Regional sequencing will depend on containment. Ultimately for the economy to reopen and stay open, we'll have to corner this virus into regional pockets of the country and maintain quarantines, contact tracing, and exhaustive testing in those pockets to weed it out and prevent a resurgence. The local governments of tourism-driven areas may be more prone to open up faster, but in the end the decisions will come down to where the virus is lingering and where it isn't. Fortunately rapid testing may make it practical to test people as they enter airports and prevent transmission across flights. That's probably the best thing we've got going for us on the other side of this so far.

Compounding all of this is that hospitals are under-reporting confirmed cases which will likely throw off projections. Failures to have enough testing supplies and expedient results has driven hospitals to unofficially tell patients they have COVID19, go home, and come back if their symptoms worsen. To-date, we've still only officially tested half of what Italy has by relative population size, and one-third less than Spain has. Whatever our improvements in testing are, we are still behind.

Not saying we should _definitely not_ reopen in May, but the only thing that sucks worse than closing the economy once is closing it twice because we reopened too early while too many regions were still acting business as usual with no serious effort to truly stop the virus in its tracks.

I am comfortable though saying we should definitely not _reopen entirely. _Returning 100% to business as usual everywhere will be a mistake. Some precautions will be needed -- the magnitude of which will vary by hotspot.


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## StradivariusBone

MNicolai said:


> reluctance of states like my own to put effective safer-at-home orders in place will likely prolong the pandemic unnecessarily.


Ain't that the truth. So much of Florida leadership is reluctant to actually lead. Seminole county is one of the few areas that seems to have their act together. Our school district here in Brevard is doing a great job of being consistent in messaging and dealing with the curveballs that keep getting chucked from our county and state governments. 

I keep having clients wanting to reschedule April to May or to June or July. I have no incentive to reschedule anything because there is no reopen timeline and I think after the dust starts to settle public gatherings will be the last thing to be restored. There's no sense in putting 500 people in the same room just for a dance show when one person could infect half the room and spread it around again. I don't see us opening before that gets controlled, either via herd immunity naturally or a vaccine. 

The projections in Florida all point to a lot of people getting really sick by May.


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## MNicolai

Florida will have a delayed onset. Between fleeing NY'ers, religious services being exempt and many congregating for Easter, and the Villages being business as usual and generally a petri dish for venereal disease, Florida is in for some trouble in a month from now.

Our local rep theater cancelled their season through July and started a $1.6m fundraising campaign to carry them through this rough patch.


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## Darin

We're talking about scheduling nothing more "produced" than staged readings or cabarets this fall (at my University) for fear that we will have to cancel a full production. We already had to cancel the April show, and we don't want to do that to the students twice.


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## sk8rsdad

We have cancelled our current season and are foregoing season ticket sales for next year. We intend to go show by show with whatever rules are in place at the time for public gatherings. Definitely feeling the pain in the pocket book.


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## JimOC_1

> Entry level openings in MD, not stage related.
> Materials Control Associates. Receiving, warehousing, inventory transfer. Low key team, fast pace job, full time with health benefits. If you have worked live shows you can handle the pace. The importance of data entry accuracy and following established procedures will surprise you if you have not worked in pharmaceutical manufacturing. I don't know the salaries but expect they are better than average.
> tps://catalent.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/External/3/refreshFacet/318c8bb6f553100021d223d9780d30be
> Many more positions for anyone with a science degree hidden in the closet. I know that all of the jobs posted for Maryland are real.


New numbers out yesterday say >400 openings in MD with business increasing.  If entertainment stays virtually closed until we are all immunized that will be December 2021?


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## MNicolai

Broadway Will Remain Closed at Least Until June, and Probably Longer (Published 2020)

The 41 Broadway theaters have been closed since March 12, and industry leaders are aware that large gatherings may be among the last forms of activity to resume when the pandemic eases.



www.nytimes.com


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## JimOC_1

This week there are over 300 positions of all kinds (mostly science) are still open at the Maryland sites. These are real, and need to be filled. (Harmans = BWI) More scattered across the US/World.








Careers

Catalent is a global, high-growth, public company and a leading partner for the pharmaceutical industry in the development and manufacturing of new treatments for patients worldwide. Your talents, ideas, and passion are essential to our mission: to help people live better, healthier lives.



www.catalent.com





There was a recent top level hire in HR that came from the entertainment industry.

Turns out if you go through me, I get a bounty (not necessary and not retroactive). Feel free to PM if you want info.


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## BillESC

The annual Irvington 4th of July parade has just cancelled along with the entire Rappahannock Foundation for the Arts concert season for the rest of 2020.

After 47 years, this just may be the straw....


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## JimOC_1

Ouch
I've appreciated your advice, I hope things work out.
Best,
Jim


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## ship

Hope things work out well as per ours' and industry wide, no we didn't choose the proper career. It's a set back but the pain over a recession I went into the industry was in... It will come back. A Change to it perhaps.


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## TimMc

ship said:


> Hope things work out well as per ours' and industry wide, no we didn't choose the proper career. It's a set back but the pain over a recession I went into the industry was in... It will come back. A Change to it perhaps.



"I should have been a plumber." - Albert Einstein

If I were giving career advice, I'd recommend becoming an electrician. Plumbing hates me...


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## Ben Stiegler

BillESC said:


> The annual Irvington 4th of July parade has just cancelled along with the entire Rappahannock Foundation for the Arts concert season for the rest of 2020.
> 
> After 47 years, this just may be the straw....


so sorry, Bill - its brutal. Do you have staff to carry and a bldg lease, or can you hunker down in storage until things open back up?


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## TimMc

BillESC said:


> The annual Irvington 4th of July parade has just cancelled along with the entire Rappahannock Foundation for the Arts concert season for the rest of 2020.
> 
> After 47 years, this just may be the straw....


You have my sympathies, Bill. In the past there were other aspects of the entertainment biz to fall back on but all of them involve putting lots of people together for several hours, and that's before the audience arrives! For the production shop I engineered for and managed all the major work started dropping off the calendar on March 13 (Friday!). Right now a number of concerts have been tentatively rescheduled but only time will tell as to IF they will happen and what shape/form they morph into. One of their big festivals cancelled their July event, another big festival in fall is still going forward as of today, but who knows? I'm holding out hope that The Great Reopening is not the Great Re-Infecting, but my observations of human behavior are not encouraging.

Hang in, Bill. It will get better, we just don't know what it's gonna look like.


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## TimMc

Friend from another forum has been out with Blue Man Group's new show, shut down in March. Management polled cast and crew to see if anyone was willing to go back out "around the end of August." Company informed everyone today that the tour will not start back up until March 2021.

Did the Smurfs get laid off, too?


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## JohnD

TimMc said:


> Friend from another forum


Well, at least he now has time to play his new sexy saxophone, likely the blues.


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## RonHebbard

JohnD said:


> Well, at least he now has time to play his new sexy saxophone, likely the blues.


 * @JohnD* Touring with The Blue Man Group. Likely playing the BLUES! 
That must've been a big change for him after years with his PAC. 
At least he's wise enough not to be touring bus 'n truck one nighters. 
*Boo Hiss* ; I hope you're not here all week. 
Toodleoo! 
Ron Hebbard


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## gafftaper




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