9-1-06
What do renters need?
Ah, the wonders of press delay. As you may recall from last month’s article (actually three months ago), we were in a sort of space limbo. Faced with the very real prospect of being homeless for the 2007 season, I needed to hustle up some space for our season – a prospect made more challenging by the fact that I don’t even know what the 2007 fall show is yet. The experience has proven invaluable in my coming role as theatre landlord.
Obviously, we can’t afford to produce non-stop in our new space. It’s an operation of one full-time employee and some volunteers, so a full programming schedule is way, way, WAAAAY too ambitious. So, I need to keep one space fully rented all year and the other space rented about half of the year. Should be easy, right? Lots of theatres need space. New space. So tasty… But there are some challenges, many of which I was forced to confront as an abrupt renter in town.
PPAs/PAVs. It’s definitely worth checking that the space you are renting currently has permission from the city to house shows. It’s you who will get shut down during your run. One unnamed theatre I spoke to didn’t have one, but was working on it. No PAV, no deposit is my new motto.
Schedules. We run longish runs at Theater Wit (eight weeks of performances). For Thom Pain (based on nothing), I need the option for an extension. Some theatres rent in blocks of eight weeks only, so they can slot in as many folks as possible. Many rental houses with multiple spaces require that openings and performance times be staggered. I find shows starting at 7:45 immensely confusing, as it almost guarantees that your audience will either be early or late. Want a mid-week opening? At two theatres I spoke with, performances on non-standard days cost $200 extra per day. Some companies will even offer the option for an extension, but only if the show is spilling into dead weeks (such as the beginning of June, or two weeks at the end of December). If we want an extension, we’re going to pay for it up front.
Access. Are you the only show in the space? Some theatres give you the space exclusively for the week. Many only offer you exclusivity for tech. A few don’t even offer that. And what are the access hours? 24×7? 8 a.m. to midnight? Double check access hours during the run. We have put-in and understudy rehearsals for the first two weeks after opening. How much will that extra time cost us? Theatre A offers it for free because we’re renting almost 20 weeks, while Theatre B might charge $50/night rehearsal space cost.
Deposits and payment schedules. Deposit costs seem to vary only slightly from space to space. Two or three weeks of deposit is standard, with almost 80 percent of the theatres I’ve talked to requiring two weeks. A longer run can require a larger deposit as the theatre owner tries to mitigate his/her risk. Without exception, deposits are due at contract signing, which can be up to a year in advance. Most theatres (with one exception), then require rental payments the prior week. The only thing that varies from the different companies offering space is the amount of time before the deposit can be returned. Theatres have offered us deposit return within one week of closing to 60 days after closing. The majority offered the deposit back within a week. Obviously, floating a set of deposits across multiple spaces is not the most fiscally sound option. Most renters I spoke to would hold on to a single deposit if we were programming multiple shows for the same venue. We’ve had the same deposit floating at the Theatre Building for two years now and I suspect they’ll have it for many more years.
Box office. This was a big issue with me, as running a box office can be quite time-consuming and expensive. I personally believe that box office phone services are worth paying for. I think house control is too vague if folks leave their name on a machine somewhere. Besides which, I’m not a believer in pay-at-the-door reservations. Too many of them never show up and it slows down the box office operation at the theatre. A box office that answers the phone and takes credit cards is well worth a little money. Most theatres charge a service fee to the customer to handle processing. A few theatres deduct $1-$2 from your ticket price after sale. If the theatre does offer box office, make sure you have a very clear understanding of the payment and reporting schedule. Also make sure you get that customer data from them. They’re your customers after all.
Online box office can also be of value, depending on the age of the target audience. Renters that use Ticketmaster require that all your online sales go through the Ticketmaster Web site, as you might expect. Unfortunately, you don’t get e-mail contact information back from Ticketmaster with your sales information. Ticketweb is another option for smaller theatres. They all charge fees from $2 to $6 per ticket for processing, so you have to decide if that will depress online sales in any way. I honestly don’t love any of the online ticket services currently available, which is why we run our own when we can.
Staff. Is there someone from the theatre on site to solve problems? Change light bulbs? Handle bathroom crises? Fab if there is, but you’ll pay something for that as well.
So, how much rent is “fair”?
There’s a fair amount of variance between different weekly rates. Some of it is due to physical plant, some due to other services like box office, access, etc. I’ve collated a large number of rental prices, and suggest that the formula in town for a standard prime-time rental is: (($8-$14/available seat) + ($1/seat if box office services are available)) x (number of seats).
The pricing per seat basically decreases as you go up in quantity. You can find $8/seat for 150-seat spaces, but not for many 50-seat houses. The physical plant makes a difference, but largely spaces are available starting at $550 for very small venues up to $1,400 for medium-sized venues. The bell curve puts an average price of about $12.80/seat for a space of 75 seats or less, $11.75/seat for over 75 and $9/seat for 125 and above. The market assumption seems to be that the first sold-out house of the weekend will pay the rental costs, leaving you with three more sold out houses to pay your actors, designers, get those display ads out, fund your capital campaign, etc… Piece of cake!
Finally, there are all those “soft” considerations. What sort of space feels right for the show? Do you want it to feel raw or polished? Don’t forget to think about who’s coming. Suburbanites might not love the Viaduct park-under-this-overpass plan and prefer easy street parking off the highway at Prop. City dwellers may be concerned about parking costs downtown during the winter, etc. Will your show rattle around in the Theatre Building? Feel claustrophobic at Mary-Arrchie?
What all these basic considerations have made it clear to me is that I need to start developing my own rental policies on the new space as soon as I can. I urge you all to visit the Web site at www.theaterwit.org and post your own raves and horror stories from rentals. Next month, I’ll use the feedback to build a rental pricing plan and also have an update on the new building development.