With ticket sales on the rebound and live performances back in full swing, the larger venues — the stadiums and arenas that pack in pro sports fans, major concertgoers, etc. — are certainly doing well. But what about the smaller venues? This is Part 2 in our ongoing series of articles that looks at such places and how they’re faring, separating them by geography. Part 1 covered the U.S. West. This follow-up installment looks at the U.S. South.
Jennifer Moore
One venue that has survived and done well is the Rialto Center for the Arts on the campus of Georgia State University. Associate Director Jennifer S. Moore says, “We like to stress that being a smaller venue does not make a venue any less busy! As a performing arts theater, a university venue and a veritable Atlanta institution, we have the advantage of flexibility and nimbleness. Our versatile staff is used to juggling multiple roles simultaneously and are well-versed in cross-training. Our overhead is lower, yet to remain competitive with the larger venues, our creativity is off the charts. We have significantly fewer internal levels of bureaucracy, allowing us to more quickly diversify our revenue streams or adopt nontraditional programming. We're able to experiment with new ideas, explore state-of-the-art solutions, and develop exciting new ways to bring the world to our patrons.”
Kacy Woody
Kacy Woody, Box Office Manager at the High Point Theatre in North Carolina, says her venue has found similar success. It seems people’s appetite for the arts and to once again attend live events has proven insatiable. Woody says, “Since we’ve re-opened, we’ve gotten more booking requests than we know what to do with. Most organizations who had previously done events at school or church auditoriums have been shut out of their old venues. That’s a huge windfall for small venues like ours.”
At the same time, she acknowledges it’s also been a double-edged sword: “Our facility operates with a skeleton crew of six full-time and three part-time staff. More events means that we need to keep a closer eye on scheduling staff to make sure we’re not burning anyone out.”
Sarah Goodson
Sarah Goodson, Director of the Fine Arts Ticket Office at Florida State University’s School of Theatre, has found a smaller payroll to be an advantage: “One of the things that helped us most was our small staff. While a small staff does have its disadvantages at times, our ability to collaborate, be flexible and work quickly together to make decisions has really helped us stay on top of things.”
A big key was a decision early on in the pandemic to keep the ticket office’s staff fully employed during COVID even though they were not selling very many things. “This allowed us to retain that staff for the following year and focus on training,” Goodson says. “Our managers created training modules and each week set training goals for our ticket agents. This helped them to remain engaged and set them up for success when we were finally able to come back to the office. I am fortunate to primarily employ Federal Work Study [FWS] students, so keeping them on staff did not hurt us financially. I know this would have been more difficult, and maybe impossible, had it not been for the FWS funding.”
Each of the INTIX professionals interviewed for this piece related stories where their leadership skills have been tested these past two-plus years of crisis. For nearly all, the challenges have centered on staffing. Woody says, “I have a hard time finding things for my part-time staff to do when it’s too quiet during regular office hours. This was a particular difficulty during the pandemic. We were extremely lucky that, as a municipal facility, we didn’t get furloughed. But that meant getting creative with finding projects to keep ourselves occupied until we could re-open.”
Goodson concurred, saying, “Finding ways to engage others while only meeting through Zoom and giving grace for others’ and my own Zoom fatigue was very challenging. So much of our communication happens in the halls and ‘around the water cooler,’ as they say. It was challenging to make sure that all of this communication was able to still happen through a virtual environment, knowing that everyone has a different capacity for technology and a different way of learning and retaining knowledge.”
For Jana Woehrle, Senior Director of Operations for the Carolina Theatre in Durham, North Carolina, the staffing challenges are ongoing: “Currently, the biggest leadership challenge is hiring enough staff to run our concessions effectively and provide good service at a fast pace.”
Through it all, these professionals have kept their chins up and not lost the love of the work. Working for a smaller venue has really benefitted Moore, in particular: “I have been able to make more of an impact and create lasting change at a smaller venue. As Associate Director of the Rialto, I am involved with all facets of the organization — administration, business, development, marketing, production and ticketing. I thrive on the variety, flexibility and complexity each day brings. And with a venue like the Rialto, there's always a new challenge to be met and new strategies with which to try. At a smaller venue, one can develop lasting and powerful relationships with not just your colleagues, but also the patrons that make this whole industry a noble one.”
High Point Theatre’s Woody says, “This is the good part of having a small staff. I like the level of connection I have with each of the events. I talk directly with many of the artists who come through and have a relationship with all of our recurring renters. I only have two part-time assistants in the box office, so I still answer phones and talk to patrons. I still work the window on show nights. I feel like I have a greater stake in our hits and misses.”
Woehrle agrees. “Working at a smaller venue allows our team to directly interact with guests and impact guest experiences, which is very rewarding for me personally. There is something very special about hearing how much guests enjoyed their experience as they are leaving the theater!”
Looking ahead, they each expressed optimism for this year’s fourth quarter and beyond. Moore’s optimism springs from the fact that her venue is in a largely open state (Georgia), on a university campus (Georgia State University and its 51,000-plus students), and in the heart of a major metro area (Atlanta, with its more than 5 million residents). “We have a massive base to pull patrons from,” she says. “We’re seeing sales trending up compared to the past year and our typical guests are baby boomers, who have ample free time and are eager to spend money on entertainment and experiences.”
For her part, Woody states that she is “cautiously optimistic” for the remainder of 2022, but concedes a new trend that she and her staff observed — people waiting until the last minute to buy tickets — is “nerve-wracking.”
FSU’s Goodson takes it all in stride, offering this in conclusion: “I am in Florida where there are next to no restrictions anymore. With that in mind, I am generally optimistic for the remainder of 2022, but I am also anticipating lots of people being out at some point from getting sick. However, working on a university campus? That’s not super unusual.”
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