The Grand Clientele

 
For the rental clients of the Fergus Grand Theatre

July-August 2015
Deal-breakers

Another season is in the books here at the Fergus Grand, and now we're busy re-tooling for  2015-16. I've just submitted my end-of-season report to management, and with any luck I should have the it before Council for approval by late summer or early fall. The report contains a summary of all that has gone on in the last 12 months, and lays out some goals moving forward in the year ahead.

 

One goal that I thought you might be particularly interested in as clients is my quest to identify and remove obstacles to production, those pesky little things that I like to call deal-breakers. I want to know the reason why someone doesn't choose to rent our facility, and to see if there is something that I can do eliminate or minimize that reason for future clients. 

 

Not knowing how much it's going to cost is one common deal-breaker. To address this I'll be adding a do-it-yourself quote calendar to the website over the next few months. This interactive budgeting tool will allow you to select your rental times, input artist expenses and preferred ticket prices, and it will then automatically calculate rent, tech support, insurance and other costs, so you can quickly test the feasibility of any event in our theatre.

  

And speaking of insurance, I'm pleased to announce that the Township is working on agreement with an outside insurance provider so that we can offer liability coverage to clients who rent Township facilities. Clients who have existing insurance will still be able use it if they wish, but for clients without coverage this will provide fast and simple policy compliance, at a rate that we believe will be less than what they would otherwise be able to obtain on their own.  

 

We've also established a partnership with a local service club so that clients now have the ability to offer alcohol sales at their event if desired, simply by making a single phone call and paying a single fee.    

 

Finally, our volunteer committee is also considering removing the 15% merchandise and catering levy, so you can keep 100% of your merchandise sales. I don't think that has ever been a deal-breaker for anyone in the past, but I know it has been a minor irritant for some.  

 

So what's your deal-breaker? Let me know. I'll fix it if I can. If I can't fix it then at least I'll have something to add to next year's end-of-season report.


Eric Goudie
Theatre Coordinator
Fergus Grand Theatre 

Impresarios 101: Production for FGT clients

 

This fall we'll be offering a free 12 week course in event production for current and future rental clients, and will cover everything a producer, presenter or anyone in charge of putting on an event at the theatre needs to know. The course is specific to the unique demands of our community, but broad enough to be of value to amateurs and professionals alike.

 

The course will start on September 15th and run Tuesday evenings from 7pm to 9pm until December 1st. There is no cost for FGT clients to attend, but space is limited. Contact the theatre to sign up.

Summer Cleaning and Maintenance  

Since the end of our last show on June 20th the technicians and I have been hard at work performing cleaning and maintenance tasks on all of our lighting, sound and other equipment. We're also using this time to build a some new and better storage, adjust the house lighting plot, and cross a few other projects off our to-do list.

One of those projects is the construction of drum shield, pictured above. Anyone who's ever tried to mix a band in our theatre knows how easy it is for an enthusiastic drummer to overpower the front-of-house mix - many sound engineers in this building only mic the drum kit for the sake of the monitors, with just little kick drum going to main subs. By placing the shield in front of the kit you should gain a bit more room to fit the other instruments (and vocalists) where you want them in your mix without forcing the drummer to play the entire show with chopsticks.

We've also had our technical service provider in to install two new pieces of rigging called trapezes to the Front-of-House lighting pipe (see image below). This will allow us to readjust the Lighting Plot to reclaim the lighting angles that were lost when the new HVAC system was installed. Creatively the impact will be subtle, but important: lighting designers and technicians will now be able to achieve greater feature definition with lower levels of light, allowing more artistic flexibility over the course of an event. 
   

The costs involved with both of these building projects (along with most of the others that are going on at the theatre this summer) were covered by the Fergus Grand Theatre Volunteers. We couldn't have done any of this without their ongoing support.

 

Thank-you FGT Volunteers!  

  
In other news...
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Summer Camps

 

July 13th - 17th and August 17th - 21st at the theatre. Cost is $185 per child per week, or $170 per child for two or more children from the same family. Day rates are also available.

 

Register your kid today! 

Do you QR?
 
QR codes are those odd-looking boxes of pixels like the one pictured above that you scan with a smartphone. They are becoming quite common in print and online advertising, and are free to make - why not try adding one to your next show poster?

Cast-based Sales

 

Attention community theatre groups - according to our data 53% of your audience are the family and friends of your cast and crew. This is why it's so important to instruct and empower the people working on your shows to sell tickets! 

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