#theater fires

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-Fi prompt from KemiKitty:

id enjoy hearing about concerts and ticket money if you want

Referencing my “how does this make money/how does this lose money” in this post.

Whoo! I actually really enjoy talking about money flow like this. Digging into examples like this helps with understanding the interconnectedness of the economic systems we inhabit, and with why things cost What They Do.

Disclaimer: I have not worked in this industry. I just majored in business, watch a lot of documentaries/video essays, and like to break down business and economic topics. When I got to performances, I try to figure these things out as an observer (dinner theater from watching Lindsey Sterling before she got super famous, more Traditional concerts at Staller Performing Arts center, Broadway shows) and asking questions of tour guides when at places like the Vienna Opera House.

Our Example: A moderately popular performer, in an enclosed performance space with a stage, fixed seating, and food service.

Let us consider a performer of middling popularity. They go on tours, but only in the lower 48 states, not yet internationally. They do single nights at an independent venue, which has either dinner tables or rows of audience seating. Let's say... 350 seats, in a middle-sized city, with $30/ticket on average, with wiggle room depending on seating, VIP passes, and discounts (groupons, senior, military, annual passes, etc).

So, who is getting paid, and who is paying?

Money coming into the venue, tied directly to this one event:

Tickets The people who came to this concert are paying for the tickets. 350 seats, at an average of $30/ticket, that's about $10,500. Most of this money does not go to the venue, but may pass through it, or leave a cut with it. (Depends on the ticketing software; we're saying this is an independent venue, not part of the ticketmaster situation, so it's a maybe.)

Food and drink The venue sells snacks, possibly full meals, if it's a dinner-and-show location. It may sell alcohol. It almost definitely sells drinks, maybe has vending machines if nothing else. If attendees cannot bring their own food and drink, and don't want to leave the building so they don't miss the show, then the venue can mark up the food they sell.

Merchandise Dependent on the type of merch and the venue, this may be a flat fee, where the performer puts down a few hundred dollars up front to set up a table for after the concert, or it might be taking a small cut of whatever is sold that night. They might not charge anything, but we'll include it as a likely avenue of income. I can see some kinder venues waiving the fee for newer, up-and-coming artists, but generally you can assume that the venue will take a cut.

Money flowing out of the venue, tied directly to this one event:

The Performer and their team The ticket costs will go primarily to the performer, their backup dancers/singers/band, their manager, and whatever fund they have for things other than wages, like a tour bus rental fee, the label, the driver, the night's post-concert laundry costs, and so on. The chances of all that money going to a single performer is very low; you can generally assume they have backup, management, additional costs, and someone pulling the strings. There are exceptions, like unaffiliated stand-up comedians or other, genuinely solo acts, but for the type of event I'm outlining, these are all contributing factors. Performers may bring their own lighting/sound techs. The venue also might provide their own. For a larger venue, I'd assume both are involved; one who knows the concert's program, and one who knows the venue's setup.

Venue staff The ushers, lighting/sound technicians, the bar staff, the cook, the janitor, security, and anyone else who is working night-of is getting paid. We can equate their pay to the money coming in from specifically the food and drink sales, along with tips for the waitstaff in particular. By this, I mean that the correlation is such that, should sales fall, the corresponding cut in costs is employee labor (the bar staff and cooks), rather than the performers (whose costs are calculated in relation to the money they bring in relating to the ticket sales).

Food and Drink Raw ingredients for the food, wholesale costs for the liquor, napkins, single-use straws, and so on.

Printed Programs Someone has to print the little booklet that tells you who's performing tonight, who's performing for the next few months, and anything else you need to know. If it's a big-name cultural center, they may even include some interviews! But ink is expensive, and that's a lot of paper.

Money coming into the venue, not connected to the specific event:

Advertising Does the venue have posters around for local businesses? For insurance companies? For upcoming events? Someone is paying them for that. Does the venue intersperse the pre-show music over the speakers with the occasional ad spot? Someone is paying them for that. Does the venue have ads in the program booklet? Someone is paying them for that. For a really, really large venue, the kind with dozens or hundreds of employees and massive lighting/sound setups, they are liable to get most of their income from advertising.

Government Grants and Private Donations Depending on the venue, they may donations or grants. This is more likely to apply to a university/community performing arts center than a for-profit dinner theater, but it's a possibility.

Merchandise The venue may have merch that is unrelated to the performance of the night. A historic or novelty location is most likely to have success with this, selling beer glasses with their logo or a t-shirt with 'home of the [band from several decades ago]' printed across the front.

Money flowing out of the venue, not connected to the specific event:

Administrative/Overhead Employees Management, bookkeeping, legal, marketing, and so on.

Utilities Electricity, water, sewage, gas, telecomm, and so on.

Taxes, Licenses, Fees Sales tax, property tax, liquor license, etc.

Mortgage or lease The venue's business owner is not necessarily the one to own the property outright. They may pay rent to a property owner, or mortgage to the bank.

Maintenance - Building Codes Any large building is going to need plumbers, glass techs, electricians, roofers, and so on coming by with regularity. (This part, I actually do know; I used to do repairs dispatching, and you'd be amazed how frequently a big box store needs someone to come by about the toilets.)

Maintenance - Venue Codes There are certain things that an entertainment venue needs to do that other businesses... don't. Namely, fire safety. It's a huge deal. Staying up to code can be expensive, especially if you need to get your backstage/wing curtains chemically treated again, which can be anywhere from one to five years, or the next time someone spills water on it. (That's the main reason open containers of liquids aren't allowed backstage.)

Marketing Just like people pay the venue to advertise, the venue pays for others to advertise it. This could be in the local newspaper or online, but if a given performer isn't someone semi-famous on tour that has a following, then something else needs to draw in a regular paying crowd.

Miscellaneous Overhead There is a lot of overhead for any business of moderate size that has its costs spread out over the year. This includes hiring an accountant for tax season, purchasing uniforms for employees, replacing cutlery and plates and furniture as it wears out or gets lost, repainting the walls every few years, office supplies when the printer for the programs wears out, and so on.

Is this everything? Almost definitely not.

But, hopefully, I've untangled a few things that you may not have considered before.

Those tickets and drinks you bought cover a lot more than just the performer!

...unless it's through ticketmaster, in which case it's probably just the monopoly.

----

If you enjoyed this post, please support me on ko-fi! You can also prompt me for a business/econ topic of your choice here.

[sinusoidaldysfunction]

Crocodile. Give it up for evil women.

[way-too-obsessed-gamer]

Do you think when Gideon ruffles his hair, embers fall off like when you poke at burning firewood. Forest Fire Mcgee over here

[woundgallery]

Ana Mendieta

[akuma-tenshi]

back on my bullshit

[soupy-sez]

Interview With The Vampire, S02E08

[watcher0033]

I LOVE NIMONA SO GD MUCH. WTF ANIMATION GOLDEN ERA. 😭😭😭🙏🏼

It was the perfect movie. It was so good. “I don’t know what’s scarier. The fact that everyone in this kingdom wants to run a sword through my heart or that sometimes I just wanna let ‘em” MADE ME FUCKING SOB ACTUAL TEARS THE HORRIFIC REALIZATION WHEN SHE WAS NEAR TO THE STATUE BECAUSE I THOUGHT I THOUGHT SHE WANTED TO DESTROY THE SYMBOL OF OPPRESSION AND BIGOTRY But of course. Of course, it was worse than that. It was a gigantic painful trek to an end to that would be less painful than what she’d been thru NIMONA U GAVE ME SECONDHAND TRAUMA IM FUCKING CRYING GDI. And it took. And all it took was one single person to see and accept her for who she is and suddenly she was phoenix rising ready to take on the world and rewrite the narrative. Just the one person to make her believe and be believed in return. WTF THIS MOVIE IM GOING TO WATCH IT AGAIN WHEN IM NOT GONNA BE HANGOVER FROM FUCKING EMOTIONS OHGOD

[ohno-the-sun]

This is like when you find out there’s a 4th Jonas brother

What are you talking about they’ve been here the whole time???

Blah self indulgent don’t mind me

[gen-toon]

[rose-bunny-28]

Headcanon that in a modern ATLA au, Zuko is a closeted theater kid.

Or in the show he REALLY likes theater but won't admit it.

[slaygentford]

I simply don't think it's likely that Louis and armand aren't billionaires?!?!?!?!???? I keep thinking about this. here mentally. also mentally on the state of the ancestral lioncourt castle and dependent village as of 2022

[oldshowbiz]

1970.

A lunatic in Fort Worth.

[butterflydm]

Hi! I just watched Dune pt 2 and was thinking about the Aiel-Fremen similarities amd was wondering if you had any thoughts about the comparison because I love the way you write about WOT?

Thank you!

Oh, yes! There are tons. Watching Dune Part 2 definitely reminded me of how much the Fremen and the Aiel have in common -- Jordan had said that any similarities are unintentional, which I'm guessing is true, because Jordan was very open about how much he used other sources as inspiration when he was building his world (given the premise of the world -- that time is a wheel and everything that happened in our world also happened in WoT, it makes a lot of sense that he would do that -- Dune is also set in the far-future of our own world as well, so they share that root in common too).

From what I've read in various places, it's more that Herbert and Jordan were drawing on some of the same real-life sets of historical societies (there's a run-down here, though unfortunately it looks like the page doesn't exist anymore outside of the wayback machine) to inspire their desert warriors, which led to a lot of their similarities.

But something that's really interesting to me are the ways in which Dune being sci-fi and Wheel of Time being fantasy had an impact on the creation and the writing of the two societies. (some of my thoughts below do contain spoilers for the later books in the Dune series!)

Dune is sci-fi -- prophecies aren't real (for the most part). So the prophecy that the Fremen believe in was actually seeded by the Bene Gesserit centuries ago as a 'surprise tool to help us later' for any Bene Gesserit who might find herself in trouble on the planet.

WoT is fantasy and prophecy is very real, though not always interpreted correctly. The old Aes Sedai who tells the Aiel their prophecy for the future was very much on the level and trying to do her best to protect and save the Aiel rather than setting them up to be manipulated centuries down the road.

The Aiel (at least the leaders of the Aiel) are also very aware that they are meant to be tools in the hands of their prophesied figure and that only "a remnant of a remnant" will survive. They have been explicitly setting up their society as a tool, I would argue, by telling their people that the Three-Fold Land's purpose was to shape them to make up for their 'sin' against the Aes Sedai. So there's a self-awareness to their choices, even in the beginning. They know that their savior is also their doom and walk into it with their eyes open.

This is also a big difference in Paul himself and Rand, in that Paul is a manufactured savior and Rand is a real one -- a large part of that lies in that Paul is a sci-fi protagonist and Rand is a fantasy one (though we could always bring up Paul's son, Leto II, who becomes monstrous in order to try to save humanity from an existential threat).

Paul is a critique of the white savior trope -- he is a complete outsider to Fremen society, takes them over using lies that exploit their religious beliefs, and uses them to further his own agenda, destroying them in the process.

Rand is half-Aiel, so that makes him more akin to Paul's children with Chani than to Paul himself in that regard, in that he does have that blood connection to the Aiel (which lets him experience their history through the glass columns), but he wasn't raised by them, so there's that distance too.

But both Paul and Rand are very aware that they are using the Fremen-Aiel as a tool for their own plans (but again, here I loop back to the intentionality -- not only do the Aiel leaders know this all along, but Rand reveals to all of the Aiel the truth about their past, which means that they immediately fracture in a way that takes the Fremen years to begin doing), so they have that in common.

In addition to the difference between sci-fi and fantasy, we also have a big difference (in the books) in how the two sets of books examine religion. Religion is a much bigger and more explicit thing in Dune than in WoT -- Paul is able to build his following by exploiting his followers' religion to turn them into fanatics. Now we do have an example of some of Rand's followers turning into fanatics, but it's not in the Aiel but in Masema and what he does on the west coast, and the Dragonsworn are mostly not focused on, especially not in Rand's actual plotlines.

But, yeah, Paul Atreides, Rand al'Thor, (and I add Anakin Skywalker) kinda all exist in this sort of venn diagram in my head that I'm going to try to plot out:

[b4kuch1n]

langa special

[its-stimsca]

WILLIAM AFTON STIMBOARD FOR DAY 20 OF STIMTOBER I AM INDESCRIBABLY EXCITED FOR THE FNAF MOVIE

👔 🔪 👔

🔪 👔 🔪

👔 🔪 👔

ID below cut

[Image ID

Gif 1: The Camera explores a dark hallway devoid of all people. The walls are blank, and the top half of the hallway is painted purple while the bottom half is painted dark green, a small strip of orange paint dividing the two. The carpet is a gross grayish brown, and the ceiling is white and tiled. An opening is labeled on the left by a sign hanging from the ceiling, reading “Men”, and a sign reading “Women” can be seen further down the hallway.

Gif 2: A dimly lit room with various pieces of electrical and sciencey looking equipment laying around. One of them sparks up, shooting a flame of purple fire into the space and lighting up the room.

Gif 3: A close up shot of someone’s chest, They are wearing a black suit, with a white dress shirt, and purple tie. Their right hand reaches up to straighten the tie before falling back to their side.

Gif 4: A close up shot of the ground in the city during a rain storm. The water reflects the lights further up the street of cars driving through the rain, and neon signs of buildings. The image is tinted purple.

Gif 5: William Afton from the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie, played by Matthew Lillard. He is mid sentence in the gif. He wears a gray dress shirt with crisscrossing black lines that form a grid pattern, along with a purple tie with thin, black diagonal stripes. He is a white man who looks to be in his 50s, his short hair beginning to gray. He has a beard that connects to a mustache, and wide-rimmed glasses. He’s in an office.

Gif 6: The Camera hovers in front of a silver machine with a circular purple screen in the middle, turned off. The screen has grid lines on it, and below the screen the words are printed “Oscilloscope, Model 460.” Various other black dials are scattered across the panel’s surface.

Gif 7: Two keys dangle from a key ring, a third key on the ring inserted into the lock of a door. The door is white and the keys are silver, but the image is tinted purple.

Gif 8: Two hands manipulate the fingers of a doll hand, each joint articulated. The image is tinted purple.

Gif 9: The cameraman is exploring an empty, dark, movie theater, the camera panning around to show off the space. The walls and chairs are a desaturated blue, while the railings of the aisles are painted purple.

[teratobf]