Can a theatre be run by volunteers?

[bigsparks]

Quick question for you all,

Can a 630 seat theatre advertising it self as a professional venue be run by volunteer technicians with the management not having the slightest idea about how any of the technical equipment works?

I would be very interested in anybody's option on this.

 

Thanks

Stephen.

[dbuckley]

It very much depends on what you mean by "run".

 

Many of the "theatres" in New Zealand are council owned venues, but all the council do are keep the building operating and arrange the venue hiring. Many of the hirers who put on shows are in what you would call "volunteers" in that they are not paid.

[ocfe]

If the technicians are volunteers, how do they go about staffing day time events?

[paulears]

It is perfectly possible to run a venue with volunteers, plenty do. In my own town, our local amateur group bought a building, and now run it as a venue. There are lots of arts venues where there may be a paid 'administrator', who rarely has technical knowledge - but it works. My own venue with 1400 seats has no permanent staff apart from a lovely lady in the office. Somebody once called and asked if we had a rake on the stage, and she said if we had, she'd make sure it was put away before people arrived. The people who work for me make the shows happen. If we could not do a booking, there'd be no show as our management don't even know where the mains switches are.

 

For every proper venue with paid experienced staff, there are lots with virtually no skilled people at all - sad, but true.

[kerry davies]

Stephen, if this is the Albany (formerly the Butts) then be aware that there is another thread asking how to train these volunteers adequately.

 

Rather than posters dive in and state non-specific views might it be best or simply courteous to explain some background? There is a political slant to the Butts funding which could be awkward for BR.

[gyro_gearloose]

Also, if this the Albany then the OP is listed on their website as being their sound technician/chief electrician. As Kerry says, a bit more background information is needed here especially as the OPs question does come across as being a little bit hostile.

[Wilflet]

advertising it self as a professional venue

 

advertising to who?

Admittedly I dont do much theatre, but I dont think iv ever seen a poster for an event that says "we're professional" on the poster.

[vinntec]

Stephen - I am lighting manager of a "little theatre" which is 100% owned and run by amateur members. I believe the Criterion near to you is similar but obviously a smaller venue than yours? Some of these little theatres have over 200 seats (Plaza in Romsey for example). They are all run by amateurs to professional standards.

 

Part of my role is to train new people who come along interested in LX - ranging from actors who want to find out what happens when they are not there, people looking for experience towards a professional career, or those who want to join the theatre as amateur technicians (experienced or new). All of these are welcome, especially as extra hands when we rig or do maintenance. Of course it does rely on myself and the other old farts (in experience terms) to maintain the standard but it works. In theory I jointly own the theatre with about 200 other people, but I don't get a penny from it but can walk out whenever I want. I am not available 100% of the time although as there are six of us who light shows this is only rarely a problem.

 

I don't see that your brief description is much different, except maybe you don't "own" the theatre?

 

Peter

[erroneousblack]

When I was a touring SM I used to dread "volunteer" run venues, it made the days work so much harder. One example being a day when we had three bulbs we had to change in our hire lanterns. I taped them up and put them aside for return, then a helpful local thought they were doing us a favour by throwing them away! I also had to use volunteer locals and students at a venue I worked at, the biggest problem I had with them was they thought they knew better than the full time staff and ignored us till what they did went wrong!

[paulears]

That's pretty valid comment - with volunteers, what often happens is there is no accountability, no responsibility and no reliability - because they're giving up their time to work there, and if faced with issues, they can walk, or be unhelpful and there's little that can be done. You also often find that while they love the exciting stuff, nobody wants to empty the bins, or tidy up the store room - or do any of the nastier or unpleasant jobs. To use an example from my own history - I've had to unblock a toilet full of poo, because none of the volunteers thought it their job, yet my cast needed the toilet! A boss can ask a member of staff to do this kind of stuff, but ask a volunteer?

[Andrew C]

Rodding drains? Yep been there... Painting dressing rooms, terminating multi cores, dragging cables through loft spaces and being bggrd about by touring shows who demanded unreasonable things in unreasonable ways.

 

I can see how a show touring in wouldn't work too well either. The touring team have a different work regime imposed on them by their time scale. The resident crew also have to work differently, they can only be at a theatre during the working day unless they take time off. OK for a one-off, but for every show?

[chelgrian]

That's pretty valid comment - with volunteers, what often happens is there is no accountability, no responsibility and no reliability - because they're giving up their time to work there, and if faced with issues, they can walk, or be unhelpful and there's little that can be done.

 

"Professional" in this context just means if the person is being paid or not. I've encountered just as many professionals who would not do what needed to be done because it wasn't their specific job to do it.

 

There are certainly amateur venues which do work because the people running them take the responsibility despite not being contracted and not being paid.

[bigsparks]

Also, if this the Albany then the OP is listed on their website as being their sound technician/chief electrician. As Kerry says, a bit more background information is needed here especially as the OPs question does come across as being a little bit hostile.

 

Yes I am listed as Sound technician / Chief Electrician on the theatres web site as I was never asked if it was OK to do this, I never got to point out to them that chief electrician means something completely different in theatre terms than what they where trying to give me a job title for which is chief installation electrician for the ongoing refurb project not production electrics. There are plenty of other faults on the web site for example the flymans name the first names correct but his second name is his nickname amongst the crew. I have asked to be removed from the website as they no longer wish to employ me.

 

Not to sure how you think I'm being hostile, that was not my intention but I have worked to hard and given far to much time to getting the theatre back open to see it destroyed so early.

 

Yes some more info would have been a good idea, The Albany is a receiving house with the vast majority of productions arriving and performing the same day so usually no rehearsal time and no proper plotting time it's all seat of your pants busking and very long days.

[Ynot]

Quick question for you all,

Can a 630 seat theatre advertising it self as a professional venue be run by volunteer technicians with the management not having the slightest idea about how any of the technical equipment works?

 

Hmmm....

 

The question itself is rather open-ended I'd say.

 

Speaking as the manager and tech manager of a small (250 seater) venue not a million miles from Coventry that is and always has been run entirley by volunteers since 1969 the answer is a resounding "Hell yes!" Obviously we're less than half the capacity with no flying facilities and a much smaller stage, but that's just differences in scale in the main. I've followed the refurb statusses in the Albany FB group with interest and one of these days will get across to see what they've done with the place - it's probably well over 25 years since I set foot in the place.

 

With that said, managing ANY set of volunteers is far from an easy task, even though around half my committee are in one way or another technically minded (which helps a lot).I wasn't aware of the other Albany topic, but will make a couple of comments over there shortly...Suffice it to say in THIS one that we've seen a huge increase in our usage over the past decade and are having to constantly review how we do manage things - that's not always easy to do, and sometimes harder to implement change particularly because there's nothing more than the option of appealling to the moral responsibilities of the team when dealing with tricky issues.

 

So - can it be done? Certainly.

 

Is it an easy job? Far from it - harder often than a paid venue.

 

If the circumstances you quote in the OP are a fair assessment, maybe that's harder BUT not insurmountable, because how many pro theatres have directors who are anything technical?? They just need to get in those who ARE when needed. If they're experienced volunteers, great, but if they have to be paid casuals, then so be it.

[cfmonk]

I come at this from being a moderately large cocg in the machine that is St John Ambulance in London.

 

We used to be a volunteer led organisation with paid supporting staff until December 2012 and we are now an employee led organisation with volunteer support. The difference in the motivation of the volunteers has been huge and morale is very low. The volunteers have seen their responsibility taken away from them and so have, as a result become unreliable.

 

So, relating back to the OP, I don't think you can compare the volunteers who help out in a theatre run by paid staff to those in a theatre run by volunteers. I think you will get a much better response from people in the latter situation.

 

Just my tuppence.

 

Chris