Anyone out there operate a "
road house" that is attached to a school?
Yes. Two performance spaces: One 755-seat main
theatre and a 150-seat black box. Connected to a high school and owned and operated by a school district.
What considerations were made in choosing the design?
A lot, one of them that was not was "How
else can we use this facility?" The first time the superintendent's office seriously toyed with their different options was in the middle of the job interview with the now arts center manager, posing the question to him before he had even seen the space, which was still under construction. Two years in, our largest expenses are the things that we didn't have in the first place that we should have. This includes everything from a circle drive/drop-off for with additional handicap parking spots, which was a $100,000 afterthought, to the little things like chairs and trash cans.
How is the
venue operated?
As a
road-house. School events are regular, but they don't get an absurd amount of time on
stage. School music groups from the high school are the only group entitled to holding their events at our
venue, while other schools have been given gymnatoriums that they've been told to use except for one or two concerts each year that they're invited to perform at in our space. The main argument is that tax dollars went to giving them performance spaces in their own schools, so they should be using them at least for a majority of their events. The school groups that do use our space have to negotiate for it and make a good case for the time they want to be on
stage. We aren't given a choir group two weeks on
stage with
choral risers for their rehearsals -- they get risers and time on
stage one or two days in
advance of their concert and that's about it.
We have professional performances in our main
theatre 2-3 times a month, with unpublicized rentals going on in addition to that a number of small
book club meetings and lectures in our black box.
What is the most common
stage usage?
Concerts. Some theatrical productions, but mostly concerts.
How often is the
stage used?
Someone's using it each and every week, and the days that it isn't in use, prospective clients are being toured through the space and general work continues on.
Does the design fit the usage?
No. The scene shop is too small for building sets. The
stage is a "poke" -- not quite a
thrust, not quite a
proscenium. Each group wants to be as close to the audience as is possible, but we cannot adequately light them on the 900 sq. feet of
apron that we only have front-lighting positions for. Storage is limited, but we make due. The
stage floor ended up being
CDX because the architect hadn't really given any thought to what the material of the
stage floor should actually be. There's not enough office space. The building is keyed as school districts like to key things. I have a key that gets me into where the contracts and money are kept, but can't get access to a custodial closet for a mop bucket because custodial closets in schools are sacred
ground.
My main problem is that I don't feel school districts should get involved in the business of a professional roadhouse. They don't have the guts to take on the risks and liabilities of making a successful business out of it. After two years, we've got quotes in the newspaper of people in the superintendent's office saying "We operate as a school district first, a performing arts center second" and school board members checking our ticket sales everyday asking why we haven't sold out a 755-seat
theatre more than twice ever. Why do ticket sales seem bad? As an young business, we need to grow our audience
base, both locally and regionally, and they insisted on building a 755-seat
theatre when 500 seats would have been better. They wanted >750 so they could hold high school assemblies in there, half of the students in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. Now that the building is open, they're afraid students will destroy the place and they have no problems
fitting everyone into the field
house. We will now always appear to be a failing business because we're bringing in crowds of 200-350 people for a 755-seat
venue and that's just how it will always appear.
When the going gets tough, school districts back out. Rather than push a marketing campaign, they freeze budgets. Instead of finding more efficient ways to operate with the existing staff, they cut positions. You want to know what would give our
box office manager time to put her delayed marketing campaign together? If she wasn't spending 15-45 minutes on every phone
call advising customers on which seats in the
theatre to get tickets for. Instead of using a "best available" option, several hours each day are spent dicking around on the phone with people who don't know where they want to sit, or get through the entire order for a season's worth of tickets to different shows, only to decide they want to
switch their seats to somewhere else in the
theatre.
School districts see connected facilities with any sizable overhead as a leech upon the district and will kill the program instantly instead of trying to let to it grow. A school-operated roadhouse is a novelty for a couple years before it is a liability that school board members will campaign for office suggesting ways to put it out of its misery.
