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Venue 'claw backs' from visiting productions


paulears

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While we know that the theatres and venues get the smallest part of a split deal, I'm beginning to think the situation is getting a bit silly. Riders now seem to have been written when a production company got stung - you see things in them that have nothing to do with production quality, but a real effort to get things agreed and budgets balanced without any real thought. We're getting more riders saying for example "We require NO house crew for the get-in and get-out" As a result the crews arriving are used to doing absolutely everything, concert event style. I guess it's also driven by those venues who have unskilled, volunteer teams who can't coil cables and have no concept about what is actually inside the boxes. There's also differences in how they do things and like them done - down to the cables. Everyone has a preference. Taped or not taped being a sticky one (sorry).

 

We hear tales of charges pf £X per FOH item focused, or gel at £X per sheet. Another charge for using a lift, and blanket electricity charge for turning the lights on. More for use of the hazer, and more if you want to use the movers rather than a 3 colour wash they have to provide. I get the impression that if the lighting op does more than a lights up at the start and a lights out at the end, that too is a contra item.

 

I fear we're heading for a lowest common denominator now. Shows that could, for no cost at all, be made better for the audience - just doesn't happen. I remember with my band being quizzed on arrival at a nice theatre about if we wanted this, or that, with the obvious extra charges - that when we said no, all interest evaporated and the house team didn't talk to us for the entire show.

 

I'm not complaining, but sometimes being in a venue, being paid from 12pm to 12 am and having nothing constructive to do is just not what I signed up to do. Every offer made gets rejected, because they really believe, if they say yes, there will be a till going kerching. Sticking out two drum risers, and then when offered a third for a simply huge drum kit, they say no - because they're sure there will be a charge - yet two hours later you hear them complaining about the lack of space on the riser. Again, you offer another, from the pile leaning against the wall, and again they say no, if that's what the tour manager asked for. In the end, I tried a third time - "do you want another, it's no big deal, I promise there is no hidden charge, we can do it in a jiffy" - and you end up doing it and they hope the ™ doesn't notice. They ask for one follow spot, clearly from the cues the op got, two would have been much better and not required constant fading off, fading up, fading off to do a pickup and back, but most places happily charge per spot. We don't. They are not paying for the two spots and the two people, yet one of our team sits on the chair and plays on his phone all night because they're too scared to even broach the subject, and have designed the show around a single spot. Crazy really when the PA includes line arrays and Cadac desks (which I noted needed rebooting just before the show, but that's a different topic).

 

Top line audio, very good kit, projectors, BP screens - large crew and cast compliment, but scared of recharges.

 

Maybe it's the venues getting greedy, trying to ease back on the poor split they perhaps agreed to, or maybe it's the production companies very concerned by the possibilities of huge recharges for items that really shouldn't be charged for. My venue has a ridiculously long push from a vehicle to the stage, so when they say NO CREW REQUIRED FOR IN AND OUT - we ignore it, and have people paid for by the venue simply because the time scale for the long push easily can be an extra hour or more than a tail lift to the dock. The panic in the TMs eyes when he sees 6 people, and is positive he is going to be recharged. I counted recently - 6 times he asked for confirmation these people were 'free'.

 

Does anyone know venues who charge for crazy things? It does seem to be getting worse and worse. I remember myself agreeing to the two follow spot ops charge, and then also getting charged for two lift operators who were required to operate the lift for H&S reasons. It dawned later, the two operators on the lift were the same people I was paying to operate the follow spots - so they charged them out twice. Clearly venues that do this are circulated around production companies as ones to watch. I just wonder how common it actually is, or maybe I just get on the wrong side of it as a venue and a person going to these places?

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ATG have lead the way in charging crazy money for extras (running paid wifi subscription backstage for performers & crew, charging a full catering team rate for a few bottles of water, insisting that overtime is a minimum multi hour call for the whole crew so a show running 20mins late could actually cost £1000 in extra fees when in reality it was just one or two people who had to stay late) and were also the first to "pioneer" charging extra for electricity and use of backstage equipment. One ice show actually got us to rent them our generators because in ATG venues it was cheaper for them to power the pad using expensive gensets than it was to pay the plug in and ongoing hourly costs the venue wanted to charge. With all the other add-on costs and contra'd back fees the show would actually make more money playing in an 800 seat independent venue than in a 1400 seat "big name management company" theatre.
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In my experience we find exhibition/corporate hire venues tend to charge for more “extras” while theatre type venues throw more in. The cruellest one for me is the amount some venues charge for “rigging points”. Fine if there’s some real work to do, but £125 just to take my hoist chain up in a picker and hook on is taking the piddle...

 

I hadn’t worked in a theatre for a while and did a nice large tourism conference at the Alhambra in Bradford a couple of weeks ago, was a really pleasant experience there with a good in house crew.

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I have worked in some places where they charge for loo roll and that is not just for the production company, that is for the audience too. If you want around 2ft of gaffer tape then you are charged for the whole roll. Same with LX tape too. If you want to use wifi then there is a charge.
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charging extra for electricity and use of backstage equipment. One ice show actually got us to rent them our generators because in ATG venues it was cheaper for them to power the pad using expensive gensets than it was to pay the plug in and ongoing hourly costs the venue wanted to charge.

 

That seems to be fairly common in larger venues, but more arena / exhibition style than theatres. However, the more enterprising ones have also come up with a "generator parking fee" which magically equates to the cost of their own power provision.

 

In the theatrical world, I recently came across one venue that charged out their radio mic hire per show, at a price roughly equivalent to the going rate from local hire companies, plus 50%. Many people chose to stomach the extra charge to save hassle. However the cost was *per show* so if you had a matinee and an evening performance, you got charged twice...

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been told fastest R.O.I. in hotel AV is on flip charts and stands.

 

A pal of mine manages a venue; about 5 years ago he spent just over a grand on 10 small artificial bay trees with fairly lights, for one specific event.

 

Since then, he’s hired them out at £100 a time, to virtually every wedding that has come through the venue.

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Not to forget the "Heritage Recharge" that is creeping in these days. I do several shows that go around the theatre circuit and it just changes from venue to venue. Some like the one I was at on Saturday are really sensible. We came in with our own LD there were 2 house crew on. We needed 1 follow spot. One of the crew did the follow spot. His attitude. "I'm here, I can do it, why hire someone else to come in". I've also done venues where they recharge for just about anything. I understand charging for comsumables, e.g. haze fluid. As mentioned though, it gets to a point where they're just money grabbing and it is a bit distasteful.
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been told fastest R.O.I. in hotel AV is on flip charts and stands.

 

I discovered a while back that I could buy brand new chair covers for less than someone was offering them for hire. (Dry hire, no delivery/setup involved)

 

I suspect that all the decor hire companies are doing is buying the covers in bulk and then binning any that aren't still pristine at the end of the night.

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Perhaps it's about time somebody collated these costs and made them available. After all, they can make some productions unworkable, especially when we see too many small production companies go to the wall. Best to tour to and worst would be rather useful. Freedom of information requests?

 

After all - if people don't even consider a venue because their claw-back list is too steep, that isn't good for anyone.

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I have just finished a 2 month tour of theatre venues from 400 to 1200 seats ish and we had a PA on the van but if there is a sensible house system we often opt to use that. Saves everyone time and also any issues over sight lines (we had a ground stacked video wall up stage with some important content so it’s key that most of the audience can see if.

 

Anyway one venue (West Sussex, council run) had a nice ground stacked PA on purpose built wings just proud of the pros and nowhere obvious to stack our system. So as usual we asked nicely if we could use their system to be told quite abruptly that not only do we have to pay a “a lot of money” to use it but also “you would have had to have booked it weeks go” and that there were lots of forms to fill in. So I politely mentioned we might have to look to move their system then so we could atack ours in its place and was told “our system stays where it is”.

 

Well if that’s the attitude then they can deal with the complaints of the 50 or so seats who couldn’t see half the show. From my point of view I couldn’t care less about the cost - the promoter pays that - it’s the attitude. We are all there for the same goal.

 

And don’t get me started on the venue who insisted it’s a 4 crew call to use the ‘scope if you want specials focussed. Promotor was only paying for 2 as per the rest of the tour so we spent ages re plotting movers to cover and then come the get out the 2 man house crew didn’t shift a single case to the truck and instead got the scope out and started pre hanging the next days show.

 

Nick

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And don't get me started on the venue who insisted it's a 4 crew call to use the 'scope if you want specials focussed.

 

In their defence, on just that one point - if you want to move the Tallescope with a person in the basket, then yes, strictly speaking it is a 4-person operation these days. One up top, two pushers, and a 'banksman'. Not attempting to excuse their attitude in any way - just pointing out this one fact!

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