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.