Beating the credit crunch!

[matmedia]

Unfortunately it would appear that today's economy is becoming increasingly unstable and people are making cut-backs at every available opportunity.

 

With this in mind, I wanted to open a forum relating to any top tips that we can share with one another to help our fellow AV brethren in this difficult time.

 

Sorry if I appear to be jumping on some 'media doom and gloom' bandwagon but this is starting to become a real issue in our company and now seems that lay-offs are inevitable!

 

It can be anything from tips on reducing day-to-day overheads, to offering cost effective alternatives to expensive problems, to offering advice on ways you have reduced costs in your place of work.

 

Anything goes really!

 

Let's see if we can't make life a little easier on ourselves! (*Mel Gibson style rallying call!*)

 

[sleah]

I work in education, so only concern myself with spending company money on toys :) so can't speak with any authority on budgets etc.

 

However, to my mind it is paramount to try to maintain standards, if laying off staff means a reduction in standards percieved by your clients, then it is false economy.

 

A real example of what I'm meaning......

We have a restaurant locally that has always had a top reputation. Recently the owner has been using lower quality ingredients (etc) to save money. The result is the food isn't epecially great so customers are voting with their feet, so profits are falling further.

OK so customer numbers are falling anyway as less people will eat out. However I would imagine that those who will still eat out at a restaurant will wish to stick with the one they know and love for it's quality.

Word spreads, the damage is now done.

IMHO he should have 'ridden' out the falling profits to maintain standards, so when the economy improves, people will return to the restaurant knowing they will receive the high standards the place was always known for.

 

This applies especially to my employer. We are a fee paying school. Top earners who have been able to afford to send their kids to a private school will still be able to afford to, despite the credit crunch. They will want to get value for money from their kids education, so high standards are a must. We have to maintain our standards, without significantly increasing fees, despite rising costs.

 

I'd be interested to hear what those in the corporate and theatrical fields think about my thoughts, does the same apply?

[boswell]

We have kept ticket prices the same as last year, trimmed the heating controls downward or off when the public are not around, tightened up on ordering/delivery of icecream/milk etc to reduce waste, made reciprical advertising deals with a local eatery for minimal cost, bit more care taken with calling the cleaners in, small things like that.

 

Nett effect is that we are running with lower overheads and ticket sales are about the same, average 90% houses over 5 shows since Sept 2008.

The credit crunch has helped/forced us to become more efficient, which will be helpfull when the recovery starts.

 

The only thing we have noticed is that some of our shows are sponsored by local firms in return for advertising and free seats. This seems to have allmost dried up but on the plus side, we can now sell the seats that would have gone to sponsors, so it is not all bad.