Coronavirus

[Jivemaster]

Given a plan they could theorise over several first show dates for low cost events -comedy night etc, with 2 - 4 performers and 30% audience at half price first night, and keep picking a new start date according to local attitudes and regulations.

 

Given no plan the choice is to simply give up, get rid of staff and liabilities and liquidate the rest to no buyers.

[xllx]

Is any thought being given to backup for staff? If you have a large company and covid does take a hold, you could find your entire orchestra, or all your dancers or all your FOH staff are exposed and either have the virus and are off sick, or have to isolate as a precaution. Do you have to run two teams? Or have a few more understudies than usual?

[Junior8]

Given a plan they could theorise over several first show dates for low cost events -comedy night etc, with 2 - 4 performers and 30% audience at half price first night, and keep picking a new start date according to local attitudes and regulations.

 

Given no plan the choice is to simply give up, get rid of staff and liabilities and liquidate the rest to no buyers.

Yes well It costs £164,000 a year just to stay dark. At any one time £60,000 of this is 'covered' by advance bookings and another £50,000 from lettings and hirings. The balance by the fact that the cafe is open all day and takes big bucks.

 

At the moment there is no cash flow from any of these.

 

A couple of nights of the kind you suggest might bring in £1000 in theory but in practice as we have no audience for this type of show anyway there wouldn't be much point.

 

The director has already 'planned' two possible re-openings only to be overtaken by events and understandably is reluctant to do much more than pencil in a few dates for December on the basis of recent burblings and bumblings from the Leader of the Conservative Party and some of his pals.

 

By which time the place will be I estimate near the tipping point.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Junior8

[ImagineerTom]

Is any thought being given to backup for staff? If you have a large company and covid does take a hold, you could find your entire orchestra, or all your dancers or all your FOH staff are exposed and either have the virus and are off sick, or have to isolate as a precaution. Do you have to run two teams? Or have a few more understudies than usual?

 

Current H&S guidance for other leisure sectors that have re opened revolve around either ensuring social distancing & PPE / washing so that transmission is almost impossible or bubbling groups of staff so that it's much harder for infection to get in and in the unlikely event that it does you can contain it quickly and easily. ie whole orchestra bubble as one, whole company and stage crew bubble as one.

Edited July 21, 2020 by ImagineerTom

[Ynot]

I think for my old venue the problem facing the Trustees is how to get out of this in a position to survive as an entity.

We're not in as bad a position of many venues like ours - we too have built up a solid reserve account against large problems arising (though of course didn't anticipate THIS big an issue). But we have only one employee - everyone else is voluntary (which in itself presents other difficulties of course) but currently almost everything is turned off or limited use so we're sort of ticking over, and using occasional days to do som maintenance jobs.

 

 

 

 

[alistermorton]

currently the borders are closed to all but citizens/permanent residents returning.

 

Aren't Queensland's borders pretty tied down currently even for residents?

[Ynot]

currently the borders are closed to all but citizens/permanent residents returning.

 

Aren't Queensland's borders pretty tied down currently even for residents?

Probably more so than many places in the England SHOULD be... :( :(

[GridGirl]

currently the borders are closed to all but citizens/permanent residents returning.

 

Aren't Queensland's borders pretty tied down currently even for residents?

 

Various states have different border restrictions in place. Nobody is letting Victorians in without a permit (you can get a permit for medical reasons/work reasons if you live close to the border and work/see doctors on the other side). Queensland, the NT and NSW are letting anyone in (except Victorians!). WA and SA still have closed borders. Tasmania you can get in, but you have to quarantine for 14 days, but not if you’re from or have been in Victoria.

[alistermorton]

Thanks for the detail. I've friends in Aus (in Gold coast) who were talking about tight internal border controls, and naturally the Queensland border came up.

[Jivemaster]

If you can open with low crew/cast shows and play to (almost) no-one then you've proof that theatre doesn't pass covid so you've made a start back to business continuity.

 

Can you get old classic films to show these days? Cassablanca may pull a crowd of ten for one crew's work. The bigger point being that no-one wants to be the guinea pig to test "going to the theatre" but if say 10 people had a good time the others know they missed a good show and may come back for another show.

 

Re-opening to a 98% crowd isn't going to happen, re-opening to a crowd in double figures would be a good start even if the first few shows take money but don't make money.

[Ynot]

 

Can you get old classic films to show these days? Cassablanca may pull a crowd of ten for one crew's work.

Yep - we started screening old movies (and right up to recent releases that are out on DVD) - we're licensed with Cinema For All and get most of our titles via Filmbankmedia. Some get pulled at times - Mamma Mia for example couldn't get a license when MM#2 was due out. But we've started (or had done) to build a regular crowd.

The bigger point being that no-one wants to be the guinea pig to test "going to the theatre" but if say 10 people had a good time the others know they missed a good show and may come back for another show.

 

Re-opening to a 98% crowd isn't going to happen, re-opening to a crowd in double figures would be a good start even if the first few shows take money but don't make money.

 

Indeed it's not, which is why we're looking at what we MIGHT be able to pull together as a starter for 10 - one nighters and small cast plays.

If I'm honest, I'm not sure this will work well enough, even with a staff of volunteers. But in a way we've concluded that we HAVE to try and make a start.

But the days of bigger shows, musicals and panto I would say are pretty much non-existent for quite some months to come...

[GridGirl]

Interesting read here about the Shanghai Symphony starting to return to some vague semblance of normality. This is also interesting - keen to see the results.

[kerry davies]

The BBC have bent the reporting toward football and kept a politically motivated silence about culture and media but a Tory chair of a select committee appears to have no time for his own government. My link They did listen to your voices, they are just powerless to help.

[paulears]

One of my Chinese suppliers tells me their theatres have reopened this week where she lives. She also tells me that foreign sales, to people like me have just collapsed and their big sales of ship freight have ceased. The sea journey takes too long for people to risk waiting.

[ImagineerTom]

We’ve imported some kit from China over the last few months. Whilst normally it’s 28 days port to port in reality the fastest shipment we have received was 2

Months and quite a few shipments Are currently 3 months and still waiting delivery