Walk throughs - pre-production meetings - How much is just too much?

[John Scrip]

Some really mundane stuff here -- Let's assume a venue with no particular policy for pre-production visits, but an increasing number of rental clients are taking an increasing amount of time.

SCENARIO ONE: So you've got a new client / renter - Dance school - Wants to book some dates and wants to come check the place out. They arrive at 1:00, you show them around, maybe bring up a few lights, show them where the dressing rooms are, etc. 15 minutes later, they're in the office setting dates for next spring and you completely forget about them until they show up for their first rehearsal day.

SCENARIO TWO: Business meeting for 350 booked for next month. Guy who is in charge of videos and PPT presentations wants to hook up and do some "test runs" - Stops by with a bit of gear, hooks up, runs stuff for a little over an hour - leaves and comes back next month for the meeting.

SCENARIO THREE: One-off private event (dance event with small live music ensemble). Walk-through takes over an hour. Several weeks later, they want to bring in the company that will decorate the stage. They all meet and spend an hour going over plans and ideas. Several weeks later, the person in charge of decorating the lobby comes in and spends an hour going over plans and ideas. Several weeks later, the caterer comes in and spends an hour going over plans and ideas (and you repeatedly remind them of the building's "no open flame" policy over and over). Several weeks later, the stage decorator wants to meet (at the venue, of course) with the lobby decorator to see if their plans and ideas will clash or not. Several weeks later, one of the musicians happens to be in town and wants to see the platforms they'll be using and spends an hour going over plans and ideas.

SCENARIO FOUR: Comedian has venue booked for next month. Wants to stop by with DP "for a few minutes" as it's going to be recorded. DP wants to see some looks. You bring up some lights. DP starts shooting "promo" video for social media. They leave 45 minutes later because the dance event from Scenario Three is loading in.

Does anyone have particular policies for "excessive pre-production" type situations...? When does "touring the venue" turn into "tech rehearsal" of sorts - and how does your venue approach such things? Obviously, you don't want hospitality to turn into hostility, so where do you draw the line - assuming you have a line?

 

[techieman33]

Giving tours to different parts of an event is just part of it. Obviously try get them all at the venue at the same time. But sometimes that just doesn’t work out. If they just want to sit in the lobby and plan then turn some lights on and leave them to it. If they want to do anything tech related or in the theater then you could make them pay to have a tech on site for the time they’re in the venue and charge a fee for equipment usage. You could even put a 4 or 8 hour minimum on the techs time. When having access to the building starts costing them money they’ll either happily pay it or do everything they can to avoid those extra costs.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Some really mundane stuff here -- Let's assume a venue with no particular policy for pre-production visits, but an increasing number of rental clients are taking an increasing amount of time.

SCENARIO ONE: So you've got a new client / renter - Dance school - Wants to book some dates and wants to come check the place out. They arrive at 1:00, you show them around, maybe bring up a few lights, show them where the dressing rooms are, etc. 15 minutes later, they're in the office setting dates for next spring and you completely forget about them until they show up for their first rehearsal day.

SCENARIO TWO: Business meeting for 350 booked for next month. Guy who is in charge of videos and PPT presentations wants to hook up and do some "test runs" - Stops by with a bit of gear, hooks up, runs stuff for a little over an hour - leaves and comes back next month for the meeting.

SCENARIO THREE: One-off private event (dance event with small live music ensemble). Walk-through takes over an hour. Several weeks later, they want to bring in the company that will decorate the stage. They all meet and spend an hour going over plans and ideas. Several weeks later, the person in charge of decorating the lobby comes in and spends an hour going over plans and ideas. Several weeks later, the caterer comes in and spends an hour going over plans and ideas (and you repeatedly remind them of the building's "no open flame" policy over and over). Several weeks later, the stage decorator wants to meet (at the venue, of course) with the lobby decorator to see if their plans and ideas will clash or not. Several weeks later, one of the musicians happens to be in town and wants to see the platforms they'll be using and spends an hour going over plans and ideas.

SCENARIO FOUR: Comedian has venue booked for next month. Wants to stop by with DP "for a few minutes" as it's going to be recorded. DP wants to see some looks. You bring up some lights. DP starts shooting "promo" video for social media. They leave 45 minutes later because the dance event from Scenario Three is loading in.

Does anyone have particular policies for "excessive pre-production" type situations...? When does "touring the venue" turn into "tech rehearsal" of sorts - and how does your venue approach such things? Obviously, you don't want hospitality to turn into hostility, so where do you draw the line - assuming you have a line?

I would say that there's a distinction between "looking" and "working" and the S3 dance company is about half and half, and the comedian is *mostly* working... and working is billable time, and that anything that *isn't* billable time hard gets out of the way of anything that is.

Or in short, I think you and I view it the same way.

 

[sk8rsdad]

The usual response to scenario three becomes "I'm sorry but the venue is booked solid until your event. We are unable to accommodate your visit." after the second visit. It's always first time "let's put on a show" people. We don't see scenario three often because our booking person learned long ago to identify the type and politely direct them to a more appropriate alternate venue.

The other scenarios look like somebody reasonably competent is taking steps to ensure their event is successful, although scenario one might be a disaster on the day, depending on the gap between their assumptions and your reality. The timing on scenario four is either a blessing or a curse, depending on how much it interferes with prep for scenario three; you know scenario three is going to show up early with unattainable expectations.

 

[Van]

If they want to run tests, see looks, or anything more than check out the wing space dressing rooms and load-in conditions then they either rent the day before and do their set-up then or they send you a rider you rent whatever equipment necessary to accommodate their rider and charge them accordingly, after stepping on the price 10%

 

[TimMc]

S1 - If this isn't a new dance school, i.e. "they've done these before" then no problem. If they're new to the biz, this could foretell some issues on move in.

S2 - If they want to set up anything on stage, a stagehand crew is required. 4 stagehands, 4 hour minimum. If they want to plug in to power, a crew is required, and if anything... I mean ANYTHING needs to be moved, a crew is required. Sixteen hours of labor tends to stop this b.s. It should go without saying that rental of the venue for that period, along with proof of insurance, needs to be tendered in advance of the visit.

S3 - The venue TD's time is billable by the hour for this kind of silliness. IIRC we charge $100/hour for in person TD advancing time. Fund raisers will gladly pay this if they've been in the biz for very long.

S4 - Consititutes a use of the stage and requires the labor minimum mentioned above as well as an executed rental agreement for the days the stage is used.

 

[macsound]

In spaces I've worked in, this is mostly solved by touring the facility with a non-technical person.
You, the tech, meet the renter in the office, talk about any tech information, pass them off to an admin who is just a tour guide. After the tour, they can ask you, in the office, about other tech questions, but you never leave the office.

There were a couple places I've worked where you don't connect any personal computers to the house gear. If you want to project anything, you pay a tech and use the computer setup that belongs to the space. Same with audio.

 

[NJJerrySmith]

In this scenario, I have the benefit of working in a union house. Sorry we can't do that unless the house tech is on the call and that requires coordinating and you to pay for their time.

I would talk to your management and see what kind of guidelines can be put into place for these tours. As many have said, some sort of payable consequence makes people think twice. Also we have the director of our building do tours with clients, the technical staff isn't face to face with the client until a pre-pro meeting at the earliest, or maybe some emails.

 

[SteveB]

In all the walk thrus I did in my career, we never activated lighting or sound gear. The rider and paperwork we gave out was comprehensive enough that any professional could figure out if their act would work. Scenario 4 would not have happened, that would have meant a minimum 4 hr. crew call at artists expense, as it’s not a walk thru/look see, it’s a video shoot. We never had crew hired for a look/see meeting and as stated earlier, would never have activated the systems.