Busy Month for shows

TICKETS
The new ticketing sytem is starting to find its uses around the municipality. It is really great to know that at last we can provide a better way for patrons to access our shows. One of the problems in the past has been the cost of getting events on sale with the arcane inside nd outside ticket price and issues over how much the promoter makes as compared with the ticketing agency.

We want to finda model that works for us and for our customers. after much number crunching and believe us it has taken a considerable amount of crunching we have settled on a chcost of producing a ticket. The cheapest way to buy a ticket will be online. which we believe is as it should be. after all you do all the work including printing off the ticket so why not gain the benefit. Our aim will be that the price advertised as the ticket price will bethe price you pay for an online transaction including all charges. f you want to make a phone booking or purchase over the counter ( if we had a counter ) then there will be a transaction fee.

Hopefully we have the figures right so that we can provide a product to you at a reasonable price. And as this great service relationship with Seat adviser grow and we start looking for possible retail outlets we can offer the outlets a fee that makes it worth their while offering the service. It would be great if we could have three of four outlets for retail transactions around the municipality. But that is all very much for the future. Small steps and better service fromour end comes first.

Possum Magic.

Word is getting around about our Family Show for Possum magic. So we are starting to sell a few tickets on line. We have set up a family ticket price which we think is a fair thing and there is considerable interest in that. We know a few working parent will probably miss the show but the idea has always beento get everyone on the road and home at a reasonable hour so 6pm seemed to be the best time for that. If it works then all to the good and we will be offering a family friendly time Ballet performance in August. We will be listening out for feedback andifthe time needs to be a little later then that's where we will head. We will also be putting people at tables for that performace so they can bring along a snack and a drink for during the show.

Asylum

As mentioned before we were very excited about having Kit Lazaroos' Asylum as part of the performance season and we are working on th eplans for both a 1pm and and 8pm performance on 20th June. Although the show is onthe VCE reading list, we aren't getting a lot of VCE interest. Talking with one of the local Drama teachers, I was told he was pushing the show at every opportunity. We have since found out that the actors want to do a post performance discussion so we will be flogging that around the schools in the next week in the hope of a better number of ticket sales. Reading this Age review should give you some idea of why we chose the play.


Last Year we presented Jackie French's Hitler's Daughter as our secondary school production. We did two performances and the show was great bur we struggled and worked the phones to attract a local school audience but for the same show we had a school traveling from Geelong with its entire year 10 class to experience the show. From conversations we have had in the past there is a bit of snobbery attached to this in that professional theatre is only presented in the Arts Precinct of Southbank. Oh how I dream of us finally reaching the level of theatre that exists in the where professional theatre is alive and living in the regions and shows start their development out of town and spiral in towards the "Big City " Theatres or they start in town and then do the big tour. Maybe we just need to double our population to hit the critical mass.


So why the busy month?

I blame Rod Quontock. We started out with a busy week, moving production from Possum Magic into Asylum and having to set up in two venues when we got a great three night booking from The worlds greatest living rubber chicken owner. Rod and Paddy Garrety are doing the publicity and a quick Google will give you plenty of links to information and to buy tickets you can visit Hobsons Bay Tickets.

I canstill remember my first encounter with Mr Quontock It was long long long ago in a building somewhere on the Melbourne University Campus. Many years before the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, there was this strange and glorious event called Humourversity. It was cheap, it was usually funny, you never knew what you were going to have thrown at you next , and often, neither did the comedians until it hit them. And Rod stands out as one of the truly memorable acts. I have no memory of any body else I saw that night.

Rod is coming Way Out West on 13th, 14th and 15th of June at the Mechanics Institute. So the box office, the tech crew and the front of house guys are all having to work a little harder - hold on, all of those people are us. At the same time the Way We Wear Fair is coming to Williamstown as is the Victorian Maori Festival. We can do it, we have no choice!

So we hope to see you at one of our shows. And I hope to hear from you here.