Operating Budgets - Recommendations

[Volunteer]

Let's say you were planning a 480 seat community auditorium. What realistic operating budgets would you recommend? (Real, not negociating numbers)

Do your music and drama departments pay per performance, or are staff, student training costs, and supplies included in the "facility budget"? I assume a student crew? Either way, what are realistic figures?

Let's estimate: Classes in there every day, 10 music department concerts, 2 plays per year, a dozen+ community concerts, local dance troups, assemblies, movies, meetings, prom, etc.

How would you estimate number of hours to estimate labor budgets? What about supplies, maintenance, equipment, capital improvements?

I can't find numbers anywhere. Do people not know their costs, or are they not willing to share them?
Can someone point me in the right direction?

 

[Goph704]

This is a rather large Question. it's not that people are trying to hide numbers from you it's just that it's really very hard to say. First off there is no standard, set answer. Budgets can range from as low as 2,000 a year to over 4 million annually, and this is just keeping in the realm of theater. Before any real numbers can be thrown out, You would have to break everything down into smaller chunks. Let me throw some Questions your way that might help.


1.Does this space actually exist or are you building it?
2.What resources do you already have available? ie-what's in the space already?
3. What Grants might you be available for?

4. Is it connected to a school or college or in anyway connected to a state budget?
_ is the space connected to a larger building?
5. Who is going to be responsible for upkeep?
_ who Pays the electric Bill
_ who Covers the Insurance?
_ who Covers the Heating and Air?
_ who is responsible For the building?
6. Who pays employees?
7.Will you need someone in the building by law at all times the space is open?
_ What qualifications will that person need to have?
_ Would there need to be more than one person?
8. What in terms of scenery would be built in house, what would need to be shipped in?
_ is that enough to Merit the creation of a scene shop?
9. How Many people would need to work over 40 Hours a week? How many People would need to work under 40 hours a week? What benefits would they require?


10. Would an AHJ approve this space as a performance space right now or do changes need to be made?
11. What improvements need to be made to the facility in order for it to accommodate your needs?
_ Sound
_ Lights
_ Scenery
_Costumes
_ Rigging
12. How Many rooms would be required outside of the main performance area?
_ Offices
_ Classrooms
_ Box office
_ Green room
_ Dressing rooms
13. What kind of power does the building have access to?
_ would there need to be changes made to better accommodate the space a theater?
_ If so how would contractors and Consultants be hired?
14. Do you need a Fly rail?
_ Do You need a Band shell?
15. Where is parking?
_ Are you going to need more?


These are just starter questions. And they don’t even begin to work with arts admin questions like, Should actors be paid? What is a fair salary for Directors? How do we cover insurance for Volunteers? Etc…. I have separate ones regarding Now if your looking for estimated budgets, all of these things would be taken into account. I have a friend who runs a small community theater in No where North Carolina on an overall operating budget $500,000 Per year, and a friend running a space off Broadway for less than that $30,000 Per year and both of those include Salaried positions. Depending on How you answer the questions above has everything to do with how much the budget overall is. Also you might want to figure out if you even need a space at all, A good deal of companies I know aren’t even bothering with spaces any more. I’d recommend Checking out the following places if you haven’t already.

Theater Communications group,
National Endowment for the Arts,
Art Search,
United states Institute of Technology,
And doing a general search on Arts Administration.
And what ever state laws you have on theater.

Good luck and keep asking questions here.

 

[Goph704]

Links to all of these should be available on this website.

 

[Volunteer]

I appreciate your reply. Thank you.

Classes in there every day, 10 music department concerts, 2 plays per year, a dozen+ community concerts, local dance troups, assemblies, movies, meetings, prom, etc.

So, we are not talking about Broadway, we are not talking about Union scale or parking, or construction costs or expansion. I'm asking about operating budgets.

Maybe we approach this another way. What are your current budgets, for anyone at this scale. Has anyone done a report giving (some details about size and scale for relating one space vs another) and then listing the actual costs for running the place?

At this point it doesn't matter if the school or the community is paying for the electricity, what are the bills for a space about 480 seats? If you run primarily student crews, (do you pay an adult supervisor) if so, what are those hours and costs?

What are your current yearly costs for labor and materials?

I assume there are hundreds of similar facilities out there running. There should be hundreds of budgets out there somewhere. Sure, there are many variables. What are the variables and what are the actual costs?

Of all the arts organizations out there, does anyone have realistic budgets available to review?

 

[Volunteer]

1.Does this space actually exist or are you building it?
>Exists
2.What resources do you already have available? ie-what's in the space already?
>sound, lights, seats, piano, projector, screen,...
3. What Grants might you be available for?
>What are the costs? Is grant writing cost part of your budget? If so, what?
4. Is it connected to a school or college or in anyway connected to a state budget?
>School
_ is the space connected to a larger building?
>School
5. Who is going to be responsible for upkeep?
>Doesn't matter who for this question, school, community, users, state, county, who knows right now? What are your costs?
_ who Pays the electric Bill
>Doesn't matter, what are the costs? Do you pay the electric bills?
_ who Covers the Insurance?
>Doesn't matter, what are the costs?
_ who Covers the Heating and Air?
>Doesn't matter, what are the costs?
_ who is responsible For the building?
>Doesn't matter, what are the costs?
6. Who pays employees?
>Doesn't matter, what are the costs?
7.Will you need someone in the building by law at all times the space is open?
>no
_ What qualifications will that person need to have?
>What do your person or staff have now?
_ Would there need to be more than one person?
>not if there is a student crew, but what are the hours and costs for you now?
8. What in terms of scenery would be built in house, what would need to be shipped in?
>depends on the group, right?
_ is that enough to Merit the creation of a scene shop?
>no
9. How Many people would need to work over 40 Hours a week? How many People would need to work under 40 hours a week? What benefits would they require?
>hopefully none, how many people do you have now working under 40 hours per week? What benefits wo you pay now, what are those costs now for you?
10. Would an AHJ approve this space as a performance space right now or do changes need to be made?
>approve
11. What improvements need to be made to the facility in order for it to accommodate your needs?
_ Sound
_ Lights
_ Scenery
_Costumes
_ Rigging
>lets ignore all that now, what are current operation costs for your facilities? If you budget capital improvements, what are those numbers?
12. How Many rooms would be required outside of the main performance area?
_ Offices
_ Classrooms
_ Box office
_ Green room
_ Dressing rooms
>Stage and dressing rooms
13. What kind of power does the building have access to?
_ would there need to be changes made to better accommodate the space a theater?
_ If so how would contractors and Consultants be hired?
>Are contractors and consultants part of your normal facility operating budgets? Let's say not.
14. Do you need a Fly rail?
>Need, want, What are your operating costs if you have a fully rigged fly system compared to not having one?
_ Do You need a Band shell?
>If you have one, what are the costs for setup and take down?
15. Where is parking?
_ Are you going to need more?
>Is parking upkeep part of your normal operating budget? Let's ignore parking for now.....

I know it all makes a difference. Then note the differences and show the numbers? With all the government funded and non-profit and national art management organizations out there, are there any budgets/costs/numbers out there?

 

[sk8rsdad]

Sorry, but I am not going to play by your rules. If you are not interested in providing meaningful response to Goph704's well-considered list, then I am not interested in providing contingency details and essays of contingency on what might apply to yours.

 

[Volunteer]

Seriously, I thought I did provide meaningful responses. Some of those questions are beyond the scope of the quesiton. Parking? You need to know if I need more parking in our parking lot, before you will answer a question about your yearly budget for lamps and gels? If I am out of line, please let's discuss that. Goph went into construction elements beyond the scope of the quesiton. It's a serious question and I mean no dis-respect nor am I being flippant with my answers.

 

[Volunteer]

But also to the point, if you run a 2,000 seat venue and run 300 productions per year, your numbers won't help me. If you have a 450 school facility but run double the events listed, that would still help. If you don't know the cost of electricity, OK, but if you do for a similar situation, what are your numbers? OK, I'm an ass. Sorry. But any information you have (in a similar situation) might help the program we are trying to manage.... Think of the children....

 

[Volunteer]

...though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.....

 

[sk8rsdad]

​

There are too many "Doesn't matters" and not enough "Does matter" in your response.

Seriously, if you were drafting a budget for this place, what general ledger accounts would you create to track your spending? When you say utilities don't matter does that mean your budget would not include utilities, because you are not responsible for them, or the utilities costs in Ontario Canada are the same as they are in Montana so provide that information too. I am far more inclined to provide fill-in-the-blank answers than to try to guess what blanks need filling.

Here's a trivial example of what I mean:

gel- gel is not an operating expense in my facility, it is a production expense. Does gel belong in your operating budget?

lamps - Are we talking about theatrical lamps, projector lamps, discharge lamps for the MLs, flourescent tubes, the parking lot lights, step and seat lighting, bathroom fixtures, or what? In my space, conventional lamps are around $500 to $1000 per year but it doesn't tell you much since you don't know how many conventionals I have, or how many hours of use they see in a year. I don't know how to convert those numbers to something meaningful for your facility because you haven't provided any way to translate.​

 

[jstroming]

Volunteer, people on this site love to throw out more questions than answers. I get what your saying, and obviously people here only like to answer things on there own terms.

I would recommend you make friends locally with someone who knows the answer to this, or maybe a local city owned venue you could get their budget since its publically owned?

 

[Volunteer]

Point taken.

At this moment in the discussion, who pays the electric bill is less important (doesn't matter) than what is the exectric bill (if you pay it) right? I didn't say the bill doesn't matter, I said it didn't matter whether the community pays or the school pays, the bill needs to be paid, so what are the numbers? For a 480 seat space, used sparingly, what is your electric bill, (with a variable such as number of events?)

What grants might be available to me, is less important (doesn't matter) than what do you pay for labor, right? And if I was going to write for a grant, wouldn't they first ask me what is the budget needed?

If I were putting together a survey, I should include some sort of scale questions, ok.
Number of seats, maybe width of performing space, number of shows per year, number of events per year, State/location,



>$500 to $1000 per year but it doesn't tell you much since you don't know how many conventionals I have, or how many hours of use they see in a year.

Good point, if you run a 20' wide space and 2 events per year, that's different than 60' and 300 per year...

So where would I find budgets of facilities similar, listing some of the affecting variables? Or spaces different with variables but spelled out so I can adjust for our space. Right now, I've still got nothing. What do you recommend?

 

[Volunteer]

jstroming, understood, thanks. There is not enough local similar other up here. Ideally I'd get a sample of a few dozen similar spaces across the country, knowing there would be highs and lows. Some variables and needing to compensate. But I've been looking online for a while now and can't seem to get any public available data. No one seems to talk specific budgets or numbers. Maybe I should get a grant to do the surveys, to get the budget, to write a grant?
One would think the NEA or artsactionfund or AEP or americansforthearts or any group here incredibleart.org/aeai/aeai.html ... would have done this already?

 

[Aman121]

Sorry but I'm not really understanding what position your in, and what this theatre really is. Is it a hs theatre, standalone community theatre, ect. Assuming it is attached to a school, I would assume that some factors such as building maintenance don't apply to the theatre operating budget. And you asking what it costs to run a theatre in terms of standard supplies ect, as opposed to managing a community theatre with paid staff and budgets that cover building maintenance and energy costs.
Just trying to clarify a bit so we can better answer your question.

 

[sk8rsdad]

General finances of registered charities are a matter of public record in Canada. There are a number of sites that aggregate information from the CRA (Canada's answer to IRS) website. The trick will be finding venues similar to yours. Kanata Theatre, Ottawa Little Theatre, and Theatre Sarnia have similar sized venues (350-550) but very different operating models and facilities. I am sure there are others in the database. I don't know if the IRS offers a similar search. None of these get you to a detailed operating budget, but will give you an idea of the range of expense considerations.

Search | OpenCharity.ca

 

[Volunteer]

I hate to say it, but it doesn't matter, does it? A community facility or a school facility, there is a cost for building maintenance, or energy costs that someone is paying. What is that number? If you don't pay it, the school pays it. Does anyone have any numbers? Does anyone pay their own utility bills, for a similar operation?

If the school is not providing operating costs, what might the community expect to find/budget/raise as operating costs?

So far I get:
Conventional lamps $500-$1,000 (but, (good point) for what size and amount of use?)
Gels $0 productions/events pay for these. (Does anyone know what their productions pay?)

Of course my next set of questions is going to include "what does it cost per hour or day of actual operation" as opposed to "what does it cost per hour or day of idle non-operation"

480 seats, 45' wide proscenium.
Classes in there every day, 10 music department concerts, 2 plays per year, a dozen+ community concerts, local dance troups, assemblies, movies, meetings, prom, etc.

Per Year Costs:

I might imagine hiring a part-time TD/Production Manager to oversee the facility, schedule, equipment and operations, train volunteers and student crews. All-in to "make it work".
I'll pay this poor sap 1,000 hours per year @ $9 per hour and budget $9,000.
I'll expect volunteers and students to provide slave labor - pizza $5
I'll pay a union custodian, union wages, $70,000
I need conventional theatrical lamps, 100 lamps per year @ $11 is another $1,100
They need Gel, tape, tie-line, and other expendables, say $1,000
Repair and maintenance of equipment, replacing Altman sockets, connnectors, mic cords, the missing microphone once in a while, repainting the stage floor once a year, $635
Piano tuning $400
Replacement Tools for when the students forget and take them home $100
Saving up for larger equipment replacements, and stupid things like dropping your coke into the light board, $1,000
Utilities (electrical, water, heat): $12,000
Insurance: $12,000
Advertising: $240
Contractors and consultants $0
Toilet paper and soap for the restrooms $600
Parking: $1

Gives me an operating cost of $ 14,081.00
$38,081 adding utilities and insurance
and $108,081 if I want the toilet scrubbed once a week.

So, I made up all these numbers. How do your actual numbers compare, and what line items am I forgetting?
Does anyone have any actual and real numbers?
Bueller?


...though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass....

 

[josh88]

I have to agree with Sk8rsdad most of those things really do matter. My heating bill is paid by the school, it doesn't come out of my budget. and there's no way to determine cost of gel and such for all of that, the easiest way to ballpark that is look at what productions are "in house" and take your own budget. Budget say, $2000 for the set, $1000 for lights (expendables such as gel) and rentals) etc, budgeting a set amount gives you at least an idea. You could have the same exact theatre and gear and have 2 entirely different budgets depending on how the school funds it.

For example my expenses as TD come out of our annual art deparment budget, if I want new gear it comes out of the capital investment fund. Different rental groups get different rates depending on their relationship with the school and some of those rentals give me money back, some go directly to the business office. Some of these questions you have to determine yourself. Because those are all variable depending on set ups.

Goph's last paragraph really explains why your questions are too vague to get a concrete answer. I guarantee you no two facilities are going to be the same. Even given the EXACT same set up, leaving the heat on over breaks and the A/C on all summer could change a budget dramatically or budgeting $10,000 per show versus $200 per show.

My materials for sets run around $10,000 a year
expendables are around $1,000
However, some of this comes out of a seperate budget because we run a children's theatre out of the same space so it functions on its own with the school

Salaries total about $100,000
Maintenance and cleaning are $0 as the school covers it

you say you're trying to manage a program, what are you actually trying to accomplish with this? it would help narrow down answers.

 

[DuckJordan]

...
I'll pay this poor sap 1,000 hours per year @ $9 per hour and budget $9,000. ...

good luck getting a TD with that low amount of money, sorry I could make 4 dollars an hour more working at a call center and get benefits, (sure its more hours but its also $4/hr more) I'd say if you are wanting someone who can run that facility look at paying minimum $13/hr if not higher, no you don't need to provide benifits but your asking a lot of work from someone who makes just above minimum wage, btw I'm in the midwest so I know theater guys don't make squat for money but $9/hr is a joke.

 

[DuckJordan]

More overall, a lot of the things that you say don't matter as far as finding a scope for your budget do. WHO pays the bills. That will decide whether you add that expense into your budget or if you don't include that. Honestly I don't know if you have enough information to figure this out yourself let alone the half information we are receiving on the board.

When I worked for the local High school, about a 750 seat cap, 5 theater shows a year 15 concerts per year, class in the theater maybe twice a week. We had an operating budget of 10k, This included replacement lamps, consumables, Show materials (also got an add in $500 for each show just for materials). Any costs as far as TD, LD, SD, or any other consulting for the shows, Not to mention tools, any new equipment.

That said we never ordered any more gel unless absolutely required. we where working with about 24 colortran ellipsoidals and 12 3 cell cyc units. No curtains were rented, and we used all house rags most of which were torn ripped or needed to be re FR.

So when you provide a bit more information about who is paying the bills and what is coming out of your budget we can provide better answers.

 

[JLNorthGA]

I'll bite on this one - as I belong to a similar community theatre.

Our community playhouse has 250 seats.
We have between 12-20 concerts a year - usually 20.
We have 3-4 plays per year.
We have 3-4 dance recitals per year.
We have dance classes in the dance studio usually on Monday.
We have one day camp that lasts for two weeks.
We offer classes about 1 day/week - whenever there is a demand for it.

We are a non-profit and not affiliated with any institution.


Our utilities run us about $700/month - this includes phone, power, water - but not sewer as we're on septic.
Our lighting budget runs about $50/month for consumables - usually less. This is about $16/bulb and $7/gel.
Janitorial services run about $100/week - usually after events.
Paper goods (TP, paper towels, etc.) - $40/month.
Publicity - too many variable - as we're a non-profit - we get a lot of PSAs and free news articles. When we pay for publicity - we do it in our small town local newspapers. This runs us maybe $400 per event. We usually put up signs on the road - those cost us about $200 for all the signs. A volunteer places them and then picks them up.
ASCAP/BMI fees - about $1000/year
Association fees (AACT, Chamber of Commerce (several), etc) - $1000+
Insurance - $1000/year
Accountant - $188/month - and worth every penny of it.

Set budget for plays - $500/play
Tickets - $30 for concerts $180 for plays (6 nights)

Salaries - $0 - we're all volunteer - this includes actors, directors, set builders, lighting people, sound techs, office personnel, etc. The only people paid are the visiting musical acts.
Their fees vary a bit. If we had to pay our volunteers - that would be several hundred thousand dollars at least.