Future of the Blank Show

[Wesley]

For those of you not at the meeting, the future of the Blank Show was discussed. Below are the notes from that meeting.

The Blank Show has been suffering in several areas lately. Attendence, improvisers showing up to do their shows, and fresh ideas.

To correct this, several things were proposed. Some ideas, such as moving the slot are undoable at the moment. However, others may be implementable.

One idea is to slot the time more like a Mainstage show than a weekly thing. Then the show owners would have 3-6 weeks to advertise their own show, truly explore any experimental avenues they want to try out, and really be committed to making the show happen.

We will also be considering dropping the "experimental" moniker. If you have any ideas on how to keep the show philosophically experimental within the community, but market it differently to the public, please chime in.

The Blank Show will most likely be dark the first two weeks in January unless someone wants to fill those slots. I will also be getting in touch with those people that requested show slots for January and February over the next few days and see what their commitment levels may be to a multi-week run of their show ideas. If they cannot commit to a multi-week gig, we'll brainstorm again over the coming weeks.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the discussion yesterday and any other ideas you may have on the subject, please feel free to speak up on here, send me a PM, or grab me in person and let me know.

Hugs,
Wes

[Roy Janik]

We will also be considering dropping the "experimental" moniker. If you have any ideas on how to keep the show philosophically experimental within the community, but market it differently to the public, please chime in.

As dorky as it is, the suggestion of calling it "edgy" seems to be a pretty good one to me. I was playing with this earlier when updating/redoing the austinimprov.com front page, and came up with something like this:

"THE BLANK SHOW
Austin's premiere showcase for new, edgy improv. Each week brings something new, and the only consistent element is surprise. "

or something more concise like "Improv on the Edge". The edge of what? Who cares.

The Blank Show will most likely be dark the first two weeks in January unless someone wants to fill those slots.

Jill, Kaci and I might want one or both of these days to put on the one woman shows they're working on, since we don't want to compete with the Same Year's Eve party.

[sara farr]

What about allowing a sketch troupe to have the slot? That could be fun and then our sketch people could have time to refine their sketch stuff.

I think it is funny that I'm suggesting this bc most other cities do the rehearsed stuff early in the evenings, and the improv late at night. Ha!

[Asaf]

Roy, I think you might be using the word edgy in place of groundbreaking. Is that what this is suppose to be showcasing? Groundbreaking work? Because groundbreaking would be a more audience-friendly version of the word "experimental".

Wes, there was also talk at the meeting about how the show name was vague as well from a marketing standpoint. Is there going to be a change there along with the relaunch or will it still be The Blank Show?