The countdown to June continues

It's less than a month before we announce the 2008-2009 season on June 1. Moving our schedule up by a month has been harder than I expected. We had the season pretty well set in January, so I didn't think it was too much work to get the brochure printed and the web site up-to-date by June 1 instead of July 1. Easy--you just adjust your deadlines to accommodate the new schedule. Or so I thought.

Sometimes things don't go as expected and it puts a kink in the whole schedule. And so it was with a couple of our scheduled events for the coming season. It all started with a phone call. A manager calls Executive Director Kathy Panoff to say that an artist scheduled for an April 2009 concert (a concert that has been on the calendar for over a year) has decided that she can't perform in Richmond because she needs more time to prepare for some other engagement. I get the word from Kathy that we will probably have to cancel this event but we need a few days for confirmation. Confirmation finally comes (no way for us to keep this artist on our calendar, although much of our season has been scheduled with her as the focus) but we need to find a replacement. It may take a few days. 

By now, our designer is on hold because she doesn't know who the replacement will be or where during the year it will fall. Probably not on the same date.

Then, a phone call from another management company saying that the three shows we had contracted for January 2009 would need to be cut to two because the company needs more travel time between engagements. Now, this is the second time we've been asked to reduce the number of performances. We had booked four shows in four days, now we were being asked to do two shows in two days. Our answer: no way. It would be suicidal if we only offered our patrons two shows of this extremely popular attraction. We needed three shows or we wouldn't take any. Again, we waited, hoping to get our three shows.

Meanwhile, nothing much is happening with our print brochure design because we don't know what was going to happen with two major events. Our designer can work miracles, but she would prefer not to have to fill in a big gaping whole if we cancel more events.

Good news: we did find that replacement artist and we did get our requested three performances. And we got the brochure designed. So, a happy ending. But I've learned over the years that you just can't expect things to go smoothly when putting together a major presenting season. Some things are out of your hands. And, no matter what else happens between now and June 1, you can believe that we're doing everything we can to announce a fabulous season for you. Over the next few weeks, as your waiting for our "big" announcement, check out some of the events we've already announced. And just know that there are many more to explore beginning June 1!

Samantha