Meetings


Meetings are held at St. Saviour's Church Hall, South Street, starting at 7:30pm.

All members are welcome free of charge, and are asked to bring their Membership Cards or to sign the Members register on the way in if they do not have the card to hand. Non members are cordially invited for a charge of £2 per person.

2009
Tuesday, October 13th - Eastbourne, a Businessman' s View
Our speaker - Giles Woolley, Managing Director, Hotchkiss Ltd. (One of Eastbourne's largest companies employing 160 people).

Tuesday, November 10th - A Romp Through The History of Eastbourne with Slides
Our speaker - Dr John Surtees

Tuesday, December 8th - Christmas Luncheon
Details to be advised

The Hall has a car park, and has easy access. Tea and coffee will be served as usual, following the meeting.

Meeting Reports
January 2009 Meeting - Eastbourne Theatres and Their Future
Our speaker, Gavin Davis, writes;
DISPELLING THE MYTHS
Background
Eastbourne Theatres comprises of four venues, the Congress Theatre with 1680 seats, the Devonshire Park Theatre with 857 seats, the Winter Garden with a total capacity using all of the rooms of 2,000 and have recently taken back responsibility of the 565 seat Royal Hippodrome Theatre. We believe Eastbourne Theatres is the largest group of theatres run by a single body within a single town in the country.

After leaving school I went to college at the Merchant Navy College and studied to be a radio officer in the Merchant Navy and while at college moonlighted at the local theatre where I started as an usher and worked in various different departments but ended up as a theatre technician. On leaving college I headed off for the West End of London where on knocking on my very first stage door was offered a job at the Duke of Yorks Theatre, St Martins Lane. It was there I discovered that the West End was not all it was cracked up to be as working on the same show week in week out did not afford the same excitement as working on a different show every week or every night. I then moved to the Orchard Theatre in Dartford where I spent 10 happy years, initially as a deputy chief electrician where I did a fair amount of lighting designs for various producers and ended up as the Operations Manager. In 1998 I moved to Eastbourne which is where you find me now.

What does a General Manager Do?
To explain what I do firstly will require an explanation of the Artistic Director, Chris Jordan’s role. He programmes the venues, eg he selects the shows that are going to happen across the four venues and once the programme has been selected it is my job to ensure that my various teams fulfil the requirements of each of the productions. The various teams include the entire front of house provision, the maintenance staff and the rear of house teams including lighting, stage crew and flymen. I control all the budgets and look after customer care issues. In addition to this my teams responsibilities also include facilitating all the conference requirements and set up for catering events. In 2007/8 Eastbourne Theatres hosted 199 different productions which totalled 720 performances and entertained over 305,000 patrons.

Budgets
Eastbourne Theatres has an income of over £4.5 million but to break even requires a subsidy from the Council of approximately £800,000. It is worth noting that in addition to this the Council provide a number of teams under the heading of Support Services which includes Human Resources, Payroll and IT cover, these support service costs are then added to the total costs of running Eastbourne Theatres.

What do you get for your £800,000?
In addition to providing the widest selection of shows within our budget constraints, conference facilities and we also assist Convex Leisure to generate an income for themselves of which Eastbourne Borough Council then take a percentage as part of their contractual obligation.

Show Deals
There are various options for deal negotiations between producers and the Artistic Director:

Guarantee – This is where the venue will pay a fixed amount to the producer regardless of how much income has come through the box office. This has a great financial risk attached if the box office income is not equal or greater than the guarantee as the Council have to pay the difference.

First Call - There is no risk attached to this as the producer will get all the box office money up to the agreed figure and if the box office income does not reach the agreed figure then the producer will just get what is in the box office. Sadly, with no risk the potential income is far smaller and we need to exceed the first call level before the Council make any money. This deal is generally agreed for quality weekly productions at the Devonshire Park Theatre.

Percentage Split - For the main part in the Congress the one night shows are done on this basis where the producer will take 80% of the box office and the venue will take 20% so on this deal we are making 20p in every £1 that is taken so although there are no big profits a constant income is achieved.


Hirings – The final form of deal is when someone hires the venue from the Council. The ‘Not for Profit’ rate is based on the actual costs of running the venue and this is the rate that is charged to the local Amateur Societies so they are guaranteeing the Council its costs regardless of the box office income, a small percentage fee is charged for using the Box Office facilities, and the rest of the income goes to the hirer. We are very fortunate in this town to have an abundance and wealth of talent across all of our Amateur Societies some of who are very close to professional standards.

Conferences
Up until recently, if more than 500 delegates stayed overnight in hotel beds, the conference would get the Congress Theatre absolutely free of charge. The Council itself makes very little money out of its conference provision but this provision last year generated more that £3 million to the town which ensure that the hotels, restaurants and local shops thrive all year round and without this, like many other resorts around the country the town may only be open for 12 weeks during the summer or even worse fall into decay like so many other towns including some local.

Catering Set Up
Eastbourne Borough Council has a contract with Convex Leisure for a total of 15 years of which we are a third of the way through. None of the income from the catering within the venues including the bars appears within Eastbourne Theatres budgets. We provide staff to facilitate setting up the rooms for all catering events and the Council takes a small percentage of their net Income and in addition to this Convex Leisure have put a large amount of capital money to develop some of the catering areas within the centre and the seafront.

Bench Marking
I am very confident that there is no-one out there who can run Eastbourne Theatres more efficiently and effectively than we do and I can prove this through a number of various bench marking and tendering processes the Council have gone through.

I am Chairman of the Theatres Management Networking Group which has a total of 26 theatres across the country and we provide full, open and honest data across all aspects of what we do which identifies that for the total number of seats provided we are the least subsidised theatre within this group.

We also bench mark with the British Resorts and Destinations Association which has a total of 16 resorts around the country providing the widest mix of theatre activities.

Eastbourne Theatres has also been put out to tender twice in the last 10 years and have received expressions of interest from companies like Live Nation which is the world’s biggest theatrical company, The Ambassadors Theatre Group which run venues such as Brighton and Milton Keynes and HQ who run venues such as the 2 theatres in Southend. All have had a thorough look at our operation and a full breakdown of our budgets but none of them were prepared to take over these venues without a far greater subsidy from Eastbourne Borough Council.

Finally on behalf of the Government the Audit Commission survey across the whole country which has totalled 381 different cities, towns and local authorities and districts in regard to everything that happens within that area and Performance Indicator 119b is a satisfaction survey of the theatre provision with your area, Eastbourne received a rating of 79% which out of the 381 areas put Eastbourne in a very proud second place only to be outdone by the West End of London which were only 2% greater than Eastbourne and we are looking to kick them into shape next year.

Questions and Answers
Discussions ensued as to the repairs and maintenance budget which was acknowledged to have been heavily under funded for many years now and all that all of the Theatres beautiful listed buildings need a large sum of money spent on them to ensure our patrons feel happy in spending large sums of money on theatre tickets and enjoying the environment they are being entertained in.

It is also identified that the Council has just received practical completion of the new Towner gallery building and Gavin will be working alongside Matthew Rowe and guarantees the building will be open in the first week of April.

It is identified that even though it is acknowledged some of our ticket prices are too expensive for some patrons we are still one of the cheapest ticket price in the country and a show that would be on sale at the Devonshire Park Theatre at £19.50 can be seen in Brighton for £28.00. Sadly if we reduce our theatre ticket even more it is likely to prevent the producers from bringing the shows to Eastbourne as they expect and demand a certain level of gross profit to make it feel as though it is worth coming to Eastbourne in the first place. Therefore it is a very difficult balance to keep both patron and producer happy which we feel at present we are achieving.