Basically IMO you are far better NOT to charge admission, but rather we typically do a desert auction in between each of the acts. We also solicit items to put out for a silent auction. In my experience you can raise many times what you would get from simply charging admission
Make sure all of those doors have appropriate panic bars so they can still be used as exits in an emergency.All of the other entrances (side, etc.) are locked, so you can only get in through the main doors
The biggest thing IMO is to make sure individual acts lighting wants/needs and their corresponding music/audio is organized and planned out well before the actual show date.
We just had a "Lip Synching" competition at my school on monday, and while I'm not an official member of students assigned to run the lights/sound, I got to stay up in the booth because of my assistance in getting the lighting system working again. Boy was it a mess. Acts were coming up into the booth ~30 minutes before the show was supposed to begin telling the light board operators how they wanted their lights, others were handing the soundman iPods with their music on them when they had specifically stated they had wanted everything on labeled CDs.
The end result was a bunch of scribbled notes for certain lighting looks (didn't come out oh so great during the actual competition) and a pile of unmarked MP3 players that had to be switched around between acts. Two acts ended up having the wrong song playing in the beginning because of this mess. We're having an actual real talent show within the two weeks, and as a result of the above mentioned incident rules have been put into place. Ex, if you're song/music is not on CD you won't be allowed to go up on stage, etc..
We charged $3 at the door, or $2 with a canned good for the Lip Synching competition, and the turnout was "okay" not great, could have been better. Charging admission is fine as long as you can drum up enough awareness of the talent show in school well before the actual competition. Also I think its better if you place some of the more solid/better acts towards the end, so audience ends up feeling more satisfied that the admission cost was worth it.
Make sure all of those doors have appropriate panic bars so they can still be used as exits in an emergency.
We use essential cookies to make this site work, and optional cookies to enhance your experience.