Arcadia Players End of Season 2017-2018 Report
Arcadia Players Artistic Director Ian Watson and the Board of Directors are both committed to offering outstanding early music for our audiences in the Pioneer Valley and beyond, but also to stay within our limited financial means. This balancing act is not always easy, but for the fouth season in a row we managed to achieve both of those goals. This report focuses primarily on our programming and related expenses..
First, we'd like to acknowledge the outstanding service, even through significant illnesses, of two of our volunteers - Diane Russell and Lynn Goodhue. Diane has been our graphic artist for many years, perhaps 15?, and her choice of art (with Walter Denny's input) and color for all of our advertising is unsurpassed. She says that she loves working with us, and will continue. Our second outstanding persion is Lynn, who introduced Arcadia Players to the 21st century with Constant Contact software for advertising, and included superb photos and superb organization of the message. Both of these women are so creative, so courageous - they belong to any marketing Hall of Fame.
For the eternal balancing act of our four wonderful concerts of the season along with the finances, the Board acknowledges with awe and gratitude Ian Watson's positive outreach to superb musicians at a price we can (almost) afford. Each year Arcadia Players produces three very different concerts, designed by Ian and the Board's Programming Subcommitte. Every year the concerts resonate with the general public.
Our first concert, "Viva Vivaldi", was a resounding success with the audience and broke even financially, in large part because we used the local Illuminati Vocal Arts Ensemble for the chorus. Local vocal groups do sell tickets, it has to be acknowledged. Our revenue from tickets was $6,584, and expenses (rental, musician fees, publicity) was $6,205. Violinist Susanna Ogata was superb as soloist in the "Four Seasons".
Arcadia Player's annual performance of "Messiah" was again a highlight, but attendance was less than the past. Snow that evening, and the closeness to Christmas day most likely contributed to a somewhat reduced audience. Still, the audience as well as musicians said that it was "the best "Messiah yet" (we seem to hear that every year) Profit was about $1,000.
Arcadia Viols, with voices and keyboard occurred in late January, 2018. This German baroque program was well designed and beautifully executed. The soloists were outstanding & of course I loved the organ piece. However, the audience is typically sparse for this type of program and we went in the hole by $2000. Ticket sales were low, $3130, and expenses were $5,210. Perhaps we should rethink a program devoted exclusively to viols - share the program title with more organ music or more choral music and advertize as such? Food for thought.
Our final concert of the season was titled "The Glory of Purcell", and was the second collaboration with the Purcell Society of Boston. Audience members thought the program a huge success, given the quality of some of the voices and the ever popular "Come ye Sons of Art". Roughly half of the ticket sales went to the Purcell Society, so we garnered $4,842, and our costs (including lawn signs, not a great connection to the concert this time) were $8,872. In addition, both Ian, who rehearsed the chorus, and myself, who prepared the program, had difficulty dealing with the Purcell Society this year - each for different reasons- and Ian feels that he does not wish to collaborate with them again. We'll see if this resolve holds in the future.
For the four concerts, total ticket sales were $27,027, and expenses were $31,423, with a deficit of $4,396. Since, as Walter Denny often says, we're not in the business of making money, we could conclude that the season was a financial success, as well as definitely a musical success.
Rounding out the year, Ian, Peter Shea, Justina Golden and Junko Watanabe gave a thoroughly delightful benefit concert, called "Baroquan Treasures". The songs focused mainly on Love's Joys, and Love's Torments. The singers picked their songs, Peter arranged the order, wrote & printed the program, including translated texts. Thank you Peter! Justina sang two Gerry Noble arrangements of classic Italian songs which were a big hit. It was one of the best benefit concerts I've ever attended - and perfect for a cool, rainy Sunday afternoon. The concert netted $1,429 for our coffers, also a high mark.
Overall, Arcadia Players spent about $52,400 this fiscal year, less than several previous years, but ended only slightly in the black.. We started the fiscal year in July with $3,755, and have around $2,712 in the checking account as of 3 days ago, which barely will get us through the summer, but may be very, very difficult to prepare for the next season. This year, about 53% of our income came from ticket sales, 17% from the Board donations and 17% from patron donations. Both Board and patron donations are about half this year than last year's $45,000, which is worrisome. It's true that we are more of a working Board than one with deep pockets, but I'm appealing to you all to think of Arcadia Players this summer and act generously so that we can prepare for the fall concerts with more confidence. Thank you in advance!
Next year we need to think seriously about participating in Valley Gives Day again, which brought in about $4,000 last year, over & above donations from our 2 appeal letters.
Sponsors (the ads in our program booklets) contributed a little more this year . Next season, it would be good to expand the number of sponsors, and perhaps ask for a larger donation from them – something we can discuss at our next meeting.
Advertising was about the same as last year's, with the lawn signs for the Purcell concert (with a message that was too obtuse this year), Constant Contact e-newsletters (most often designed and sent by Lynn Goodhue, thank you), Facebook articles by Lynn again, newspaper ads for the Messiah and Purcell concerts (thanks, Mark) our website, ticket brochure, programs, posters and postcards for the 4 concerts and 1 benefit concert . . Walter and I wrote the two appeal letters this year - perhaps someone else might want to take a stab at it this coming year? Lou is taking over the website and Constant Contact responsibility - thanks Lou. I wasn't aware that the deadline for local cultural council grants was changed this past year, and we did not apply in time to be funded. I'll certainly be more alert this coming fiscal year to the deadline!
Priscilla Drucker wrote copy for the newspapers plus the information for Constant Contact e-newsletters, Facebook & our “ask” letter to sponsors. Dan Denicola from the Gazette used the information she wrote - Arcadia had listings and a picture for every concert, and sometimes little articles by Priscilla or Dan.
Our fabulous graphic designer Diane Russell designed all five postcards, posters, the newspaper ads, ads for Mohawk Trails and Da Camera Singers, and the covers to the 4 program booklets – all were simply beautiful, with 3 church interiors and 1 Mozart club room. The gorgeous colors, and design were outstanding as always. Thank you Diane!
Peter Shea was Diane's "right hand man" for many years, helping to coordinate all the things Diane designed, plus proofread them & coordinate the program booklets. Walter and I tried to coordinate the program booklets this year, but neither of us were great at it- you heard both of us grousing about this task a lot! But program booklets are vital. Preparing program booklets will be a big issue for us to solve in the near future.
Another big group to thank were our volunteers who helped at the box office and handing out programs. There were about 15 different volunteers this season, including Bd members Lynn, Marilyn, Lou and Suzan. Linda Babcock organized the volunteers, and all things financial, plus managing the office.
Acadia Player's Board of Directors added two new members this past year - Justina Golden and Lou Conover. Both have proved to be helpful Arcadia Players. Thanks to you all!
We're always open to expanding our Board; if anyone has ideas, please offer them!
Next season's programs will be outstanding as always - Mozart for the evening in October, our traditional Messiah in December, two lute musicians in January, and ending with Bach cantatas/chorales in March, possible with a subset of the Illuminati singers. Let's hope for a great 29th season, financially as well as musically! Thank you Ian, even thought we don't see you much, for all you do to prepare these outstanding concerts.
Respectfully submitted,
Carolyn Holstein, Arcadia Players Board President
Arcadia Players Artistic Director Ian Watson and the Board of Directors are both committed to offering outstanding early music for our audiences in the Pioneer Valley and beyond, but also to stay within our limited financial means. This balancing act is not always easy, but for the fouth season in a row we managed to achieve both of those goals. This report focuses primarily on our programming and related expenses..
First, we'd like to acknowledge the outstanding service, even through significant illnesses, of two of our volunteers - Diane Russell and Lynn Goodhue. Diane has been our graphic artist for many years, perhaps 15?, and her choice of art (with Walter Denny's input) and color for all of our advertising is unsurpassed. She says that she loves working with us, and will continue. Our second outstanding persion is Lynn, who introduced Arcadia Players to the 21st century with Constant Contact software for advertising, and included superb photos and superb organization of the message. Both of these women are so creative, so courageous - they belong to any marketing Hall of Fame.
For the eternal balancing act of our four wonderful concerts of the season along with the finances, the Board acknowledges with awe and gratitude Ian Watson's positive outreach to superb musicians at a price we can (almost) afford. Each year Arcadia Players produces three very different concerts, designed by Ian and the Board's Programming Subcommitte. Every year the concerts resonate with the general public.
Our first concert, "Viva Vivaldi", was a resounding success with the audience and broke even financially, in large part because we used the local Illuminati Vocal Arts Ensemble for the chorus. Local vocal groups do sell tickets, it has to be acknowledged. Our revenue from tickets was $6,584, and expenses (rental, musician fees, publicity) was $6,205. Violinist Susanna Ogata was superb as soloist in the "Four Seasons".
Arcadia Player's annual performance of "Messiah" was again a highlight, but attendance was less than the past. Snow that evening, and the closeness to Christmas day most likely contributed to a somewhat reduced audience. Still, the audience as well as musicians said that it was "the best "Messiah yet" (we seem to hear that every year) Profit was about $1,000.
Arcadia Viols, with voices and keyboard occurred in late January, 2018. This German baroque program was well designed and beautifully executed. The soloists were outstanding & of course I loved the organ piece. However, the audience is typically sparse for this type of program and we went in the hole by $2000. Ticket sales were low, $3130, and expenses were $5,210. Perhaps we should rethink a program devoted exclusively to viols - share the program title with more organ music or more choral music and advertize as such? Food for thought.
Our final concert of the season was titled "The Glory of Purcell", and was the second collaboration with the Purcell Society of Boston. Audience members thought the program a huge success, given the quality of some of the voices and the ever popular "Come ye Sons of Art". Roughly half of the ticket sales went to the Purcell Society, so we garnered $4,842, and our costs (including lawn signs, not a great connection to the concert this time) were $8,872. In addition, both Ian, who rehearsed the chorus, and myself, who prepared the program, had difficulty dealing with the Purcell Society this year - each for different reasons- and Ian feels that he does not wish to collaborate with them again. We'll see if this resolve holds in the future.
For the four concerts, total ticket sales were $27,027, and expenses were $31,423, with a deficit of $4,396. Since, as Walter Denny often says, we're not in the business of making money, we could conclude that the season was a financial success, as well as definitely a musical success.
Rounding out the year, Ian, Peter Shea, Justina Golden and Junko Watanabe gave a thoroughly delightful benefit concert, called "Baroquan Treasures". The songs focused mainly on Love's Joys, and Love's Torments. The singers picked their songs, Peter arranged the order, wrote & printed the program, including translated texts. Thank you Peter! Justina sang two Gerry Noble arrangements of classic Italian songs which were a big hit. It was one of the best benefit concerts I've ever attended - and perfect for a cool, rainy Sunday afternoon. The concert netted $1,429 for our coffers, also a high mark.
Overall, Arcadia Players spent about $52,400 this fiscal year, less than several previous years, but ended only slightly in the black.. We started the fiscal year in July with $3,755, and have around $2,712 in the checking account as of 3 days ago, which barely will get us through the summer, but may be very, very difficult to prepare for the next season. This year, about 53% of our income came from ticket sales, 17% from the Board donations and 17% from patron donations. Both Board and patron donations are about half this year than last year's $45,000, which is worrisome. It's true that we are more of a working Board than one with deep pockets, but I'm appealing to you all to think of Arcadia Players this summer and act generously so that we can prepare for the fall concerts with more confidence. Thank you in advance!
Next year we need to think seriously about participating in Valley Gives Day again, which brought in about $4,000 last year, over & above donations from our 2 appeal letters.
Sponsors (the ads in our program booklets) contributed a little more this year . Next season, it would be good to expand the number of sponsors, and perhaps ask for a larger donation from them – something we can discuss at our next meeting.
Advertising was about the same as last year's, with the lawn signs for the Purcell concert (with a message that was too obtuse this year), Constant Contact e-newsletters (most often designed and sent by Lynn Goodhue, thank you), Facebook articles by Lynn again, newspaper ads for the Messiah and Purcell concerts (thanks, Mark) our website, ticket brochure, programs, posters and postcards for the 4 concerts and 1 benefit concert . . Walter and I wrote the two appeal letters this year - perhaps someone else might want to take a stab at it this coming year? Lou is taking over the website and Constant Contact responsibility - thanks Lou. I wasn't aware that the deadline for local cultural council grants was changed this past year, and we did not apply in time to be funded. I'll certainly be more alert this coming fiscal year to the deadline!
Priscilla Drucker wrote copy for the newspapers plus the information for Constant Contact e-newsletters, Facebook & our “ask” letter to sponsors. Dan Denicola from the Gazette used the information she wrote - Arcadia had listings and a picture for every concert, and sometimes little articles by Priscilla or Dan.
Our fabulous graphic designer Diane Russell designed all five postcards, posters, the newspaper ads, ads for Mohawk Trails and Da Camera Singers, and the covers to the 4 program booklets – all were simply beautiful, with 3 church interiors and 1 Mozart club room. The gorgeous colors, and design were outstanding as always. Thank you Diane!
Peter Shea was Diane's "right hand man" for many years, helping to coordinate all the things Diane designed, plus proofread them & coordinate the program booklets. Walter and I tried to coordinate the program booklets this year, but neither of us were great at it- you heard both of us grousing about this task a lot! But program booklets are vital. Preparing program booklets will be a big issue for us to solve in the near future.
Another big group to thank were our volunteers who helped at the box office and handing out programs. There were about 15 different volunteers this season, including Bd members Lynn, Marilyn, Lou and Suzan. Linda Babcock organized the volunteers, and all things financial, plus managing the office.
Acadia Player's Board of Directors added two new members this past year - Justina Golden and Lou Conover. Both have proved to be helpful Arcadia Players. Thanks to you all!
We're always open to expanding our Board; if anyone has ideas, please offer them!
Next season's programs will be outstanding as always - Mozart for the evening in October, our traditional Messiah in December, two lute musicians in January, and ending with Bach cantatas/chorales in March, possible with a subset of the Illuminati singers. Let's hope for a great 29th season, financially as well as musically! Thank you Ian, even thought we don't see you much, for all you do to prepare these outstanding concerts.
Respectfully submitted,
Carolyn Holstein, Arcadia Players Board President
