… from this year’s Rogue. Some are suffering from PRD (post-rogue depression) and others are simply catching up on sleep.
The closing party on Saturday was quite the humdinger. The after party raged on till close to sunrise.
Post-Rogue, there has been an interesting discussion about show pricing. I did not weigh in (over there) even though my own show was part of an experiment relating to the topic. By doing what I did, “$7 or Pay What You Want” I gently made my audience consider the value of the Arts. The result averaged at 15 percent over the “suggested price”. That gives me hope.
I was out “working the lines” along with the rest of them… well, at least the few who also were – mostly the out-of-town performers. (Local performers still have an aversion to this form of direct marketing.) My efforts did bear results. Especially considering the fact that mine was a “rogue-ing the rogue” show..,. which did not have the advantage of being “listed” in the Rogue Map or the festival Grid. Even allowing for a “stacked audience” quotient (a percentage made up of friends) the average came in at around 65 percent of a full house. Not bad considering that I was up against 76 other shows.
The third part of this experiment was to use the show to launch another project. Official launch details will follow soon. The results for that will be determined in the weeks to come. The idea behind it was to use the high profile nature of the festival to bring in new audiences to consider attending other projects you are endeavoring upon the rest of the year – the rest of your season (if what you do is theatre) or future gigs (if you are a musical act).
So, my Rogue this year was not just catching new and original shows (which I did… but not as much as I wanted to), or just hanging out with friends (which I did and happily so) but also working it from the trenches… or at least a parallel trench, so to speak. All in all it was a rewarding experience.
Now on to the next project and to make it so before the wave of the Rogue totally dissipates.
(photo courtesy of Barry Smith)