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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes.WHLR.20150923.RegularWHEELER OPERA HOUSE MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS DATE: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 TIME: 4:00pm LOCATION: Wheeler Opera House Conference Room PRESENT: Board Members: Brian O’Neil, Chairperson Christine Benedetti Chip Fuller Dr. Tom Kurt Audrey Kwong (on behalf of Daniel Song) Absent: Douglas Clayton Richie Cohen Richard Stettner Guest -Citizen’s Academy Presentation: Michelle Holder COA/Wheeler Opera House: Gena Buhler, Executive Director Randy Ready, Assistant City Manager RECORDED BY: Jeni Hepler, Ticketing Coordinator I. CALL TO ORDER O’Neil called the meeting to order at 4:05pm. II. GUEST PRESENTATION REGARDING CITIZEN’S ACADEMY (MICHELLE HOLDER) Buhler introduced Michelle Holder from the Aspen Citizen’s Academy. Holder was hired for 1 year to form the Aspen Citizen’s Academy. This project is an engagement effort to inform the Aspen community members about city government. Ideally, people will sign up to attend weekly meetings, for a 3 month period. The meetings will provide an overview of how city government works, including:  A background and history of Aspen.  Information on where the city gets its power.  Information on how decisions are made, and how city council develops their top 10 goals. The Aspen Citizen’s Academy will discuss the different services offered through city departments; including, Police, Parks and Recreation, as well as the Wheeler. This may include a tour of the Wheeler Opera House as part of the program. The project will bring in RFTA and Pitkin County to talk about their responsibilities and how they differentiate from what the city does. The goal of this project include:  To make people more aware of who to talk to, when they have an issue.  To increase the community’s interest in joining advisory boards  To increase the amount of people wanting to serve the city or volunteer.  Holder reports to Karen Harrington and they both report to Barry Crook (Assistant City Manager). Fuller compared this project to a similar program in Boulder, perhaps 10 or 15 years ago. He said that the Boulder program was pretty successful and more people did end up joining advisory boards. Holder said that Fort Collins has a long running successful program, which includes Alumni Forums. Currently Aspen’s project is focused on getting started. Holder is hoping to establish a long term program. Focus groups are being held. The first focus group meeting will be held September 24, 2015. This meeting will inquire on topics of interest. Currently, there is not a second meeting schedule. III. APPROVAL OF THE JULY 2015 MEETING MINUTES O’Neil made the motion to approve the minutes; Kurt seconded. The board unanimously voted to accept the minutes. IV. DIRECTOR’S REPORT & UPDATE Staffing-Buhler discussed the attrition over the last couple of weeks, as this is expected with a new director, and Buhler is currently working on a team restructure to have a strong team moving forward that is working smartly and effectively. Amy Kaiser (Sr. Ops Manager) resigned last week. The new position that had been offered to her was not one she was interested in taking. She will be officially done, mid-October. Right now, we have posted a new General Manager position. The new GM position is an elevated Senior Operations Manager position. The plan is to hire by early November. Buhler would like to hire somebody within the industry that lives in the state. A nationwide wide search will be tough to bring someone in that will be a good fit for Aspen, and for this team. We are looking at past candidates for the Executive Director. Currently there are 1 or 2 strong candidates. Lauren Pierce, Wheeler Marketing Coordinator, decided to move back home to upstate New York. She stayed through the MountainSummit Festival. Her family bought a landscaping business, and she is now in charge of all the marketing and PR for that business. An RFP is going out within the next couple days for a marketing firm that will replace the Marketing Coordinator role that Lauren served. The firm that was hired for MountainSummit is interested in putting in a bid, as well as an agency in Denver. In the next couple of days/weeks, Genna Moe’s position, Audience Services Manager, will be reviewed to see what is needed from that role and if we need to restructure it. Kurt asked who would be handling social media. Buhler responded that the marketing firm would focus on the plan behind it and the entire team will be expected to be helping with content. The goal is to have a full complete team that is up and running by early November. Of the team members that are here some are either taking vacation or are being reassigned to other departments across the city. Programming-Buhler discussed a presale and an announcement of the holiday series (December line up). The grand reopening will be December 19th with Scott Bradley and Postmodern Jukebox. This is a great show that will blend different demographics and is great for kids. We just confirmed for December 20th with comedian Kevin Smith. He is funny and a decently family friendly comedian. He has 6 or 7 shows in Denver at Comedy Works and in Boulder, Every time he performs shows, he sell out. There is a potential to do second show on the 20th. After that, we will go into Academy Screenings and the Christmas Eve mass. The New Year’s Eve concert will feature The Slambovian Circus of Dreams. Other shows that are confirmed are: 1-Man Star Wars Trilogy, which is a one man show performing Star Wars. An early January date is proposed with an affordable ticket price. During Gay Ski Week we have Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack, and Illusionist/Magician Jason Bishop. There is an offer in for another magician and illusionist- Mike Super, he was on the show America’s Got Talent. Also confirmed are One Night of Queen and Los Lonely Boys. Currently offers are out for Edwin McCain, this is between the Sheridan Opera House and us, Sing-A-Long Frozen, and Daniel Tosh. Buhler discussed partnering with Aspen Santa Fe Ballet to bring Flamenco to the Wheeler stage and partnering with Belly Up Aspen to bring in some bigger names. Other collaborations include a musical theater performance with Paige Price from Theatre Aspen and some classical music collaborations with Daniel Song, of the Aspen Music Festival and School. The entire season will be planned and ready by early November. Also in November, we are planning an offsite preview party. Possible locations include the Limelight Hotel or The Little Nell Hotel. This party will include a presentation for the community on the upcoming season, and information on Roaring Fork Valley resident membership opportunities. Membership opportunities include access to a local-level ticket price and information on how the membership works, plus setting up subscription model membership. Guests that register for these memberships give us another segment of the population for direct marketing. In the future, this preview event will be held in the upstairs lobby. Benedetti said the Aspen Chamber has a millennial pass that was launched this summer. She stated this may be something the Wheeler could be a part of. Kurt inquired about comedy week and about scalper prevention for lower priced membership level tickets. Buhler responded that the state of Colorado doesn’t have any anti-scalping laws. Our ticketing system has ways to combat scalping but the government sees a ticket as personal property and does not have laws to prevent scalping. Laff Fest is February 17th thru February 19th. Thursday, of Laff Fest, will open with Chicago’s Second City; Friday is Heather MacDonald and Gilbert Godfrey; and Saturday is Holmes and Steve Burns. The Thursday après free community event, will feature improv comedy workshops with Chicago’s Second City. On Thursday, Laff Fest will also host some improv comedy workshops in the schools. Friday & Saturday Laff Fest will have an “Improv Comedy Hour” This event will be free, and feature local comedians. The flow of the house and entrance to the theatre will change, to allow patrons up in the bar that do not have tickets. There will be a new door and scanning position by the new men’s restroom, will be located near the pink staircase. This will allow for better flow when changing over audiences. A goal is to be able to have 2 shows each day. Renovation – The support wall in the box office will be taken out in the next 2 weeks. Small sections have been taken out for inspection. Shoring will start downstairs on Monday, by the end of the week the wall should be out. The elevator may be modernized, this requires the elevator to be down for 5 – 7 weeks. Pieces of the roof are off, the HVAC is off. During the November board meeting there will be walk through of the building. Budget / Financial Update – Rose put together a Preliminary August 2015 Budget (see attached document). A forecast column will be added into the report to see what the approved budget was and how numbers are moved around. The revenue budget for 2015 was done without a closure, now the numbers have been reforecast based on the closure and we are coming out on top. MountainSummit did very well. The RETT number is not updated. Some money will be going into savings. MountainSummit numbers were 21% up overall, due to the success of the pass sales. We sold 67 more passes than in 2014. Thursday and Summit Passes had to be cut off. The Thursday – Evening of Adventure program was completely sold out. Per box office estimates, for the closing night screening of Unbranded we turned away 200 people. The Kidz Kino event brought in between 150 - 200 kids/parents to the Wheeler on a Sunday morning. Friday overall didn’t do very well. There was competition with the Aspen Public Radio fundraiser and a big event for Theatre Aspen. Pass sales were up by almost $10,000. Single tickets sales were down a little bit due to not being able to sell for Thursday and Sunday night films. A survey was sent out to all attendees, results are being tallied. The branding of MountainSummit will continue with the winter Monday documentary series. Documentaries will include a couple of repeats, and some films that we weren’t able to show at MountainSummit due to availability, and some films that will be a preview to MountainFilm in Telluride. Passes will be available for the entire documentary series. Otherwise it will be an affordable ticket. Morning Coffee Talks are being reviewed for a possible time change. Benedetti said the morning events at the Aspen Historical Society do not work for them. MountainFilm in Telluride has a continued education program that provides a DVD to the school system to screen films in school. The Saturday night concert sold out. This event was a 50/50 split with Belly Up Aspen. The “big picture” for Belly Up Aspen and The Laff Festival is to potentially do a late night comedy show; either encore performance or whole different programming. V. DISCUSSION: BIG PICTURE IDEAS AND THOUGHTS FROM MEMBERS Buhler asked the board for any big pictures ideas. The new space upstairs will be great for board meetings, community meetings, and perhaps a free "Love the Locals" series in the fall, a discover the music concept. The space is great for acts that don not need to be inside the theater – 50 to 100 sized audience. O’Neil asked about Christmas, He talked about a radio program for kids that is free and serves hot chocolate. A Christmas Carol, previously performed at the Wheeler, involved kids from the community. The Nebraska Theatre Caravan does a beautiful musical theatre version of A Christmas Carol. Perhaps a potential for December of 2017. Fuller stated how important this winter will be with the renovation and with Gena as our new Executive Director. He suggested that we have a good variety including speakers, with a big name or two. Fuller anticipates a lot of talk about the ‘new wheeler’. O’Neil suggested working with KJAX. Buhler asked what the price sensitivity is for tickets; a $50,000 act comes out to be about $63,000, to break even this equates a ticket price of $125-$145. It all depends on the frequency of concert goers, and the possibility of bringing in new audience members. Fuller suggested on having the first 50 ticket buyers in at a lower price. The music festival has highest tickets around $80-$100. Kwong suggested having more popular bands performing an acoustic set, expenses are cut, and it brings a unique experience. Fuller said to remember in February, (around Mardi Gras), a lot of visitors are coming up from the south. VI. RETT DISCUSSION The RETT will be on the ballot in Fall of 2016. The goal right now is to get people to understand what the RETT funding is and what it’s paying for and how it happens. We are beginning to have collateral material, and a website. We will have a new website in the spring of next year. There will be a page on the website dedicated to the RETT with detailed information. Buhler and Ready discussed an idea that everyone who purchases a house in the valley and pays the transfer tax will be sent a personal letter thanking them and explaining the support this tax provides. In the next couple of weeks, Buhler will go on the radio for Community Matters. Ready informed the board that once the RETT goes to ballot question we, as city employees, will have to step back. If the election does not go in our favor then we have opportunities to make changes before the 2019 sunset. VII. SET DATE FOR NOVEMBER MEETING The board scheduled the November meeting of the Board of Directors for November 11, 2015 at 4:00pm. VII. ADJOURNMENT Buhler called for a motion to adjourn; O’Neil made the motion; Fuller seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 5:22pm.