First Night FRIGHT NIGHT

kbadr · Post by **kbadr** » December 28th, 2006, 2:00 pm

A friend of mine heard the New Years Eve show get mentioned on KUT yesterday. Must be where the ticket sales came from. Neat.

nadine · Post by **nadine** » December 28th, 2006, 4:31 pm

kbadr wrote:A friend of mine heard the New Years Eve show get mentioned on KUT yesterday. Must be where the ticket sales came from. Neat.

Austin360.com is giving us lots of sales too. Yay!

kbadr · Post by **kbadr** » December 28th, 2006, 4:35 pm

We need to try to figure out what exactly makes this show seems so special that it's getting pimped by sources that usually ignore our regularly-scheduled shows.

Is it just the adult-yet-not-boring aspect of spending New Years Eve watching improv, rather than getting smashed at some lame-ass bar?

Or maybe $15 seems cheap for a New Years show when there are bars on 6th street that charge almost that (or more? I have no idea) for a cover on NYE.

nadine · Post by **nadine** » December 28th, 2006, 4:42 pm

It's listed on Austin360 things to do for NYE.

Andy mentioned that there isn't really a lot of stuff to do for NYE in Austin, so people may be desperate.

Also, the blurb on the 360 page cleverly mentions that it's right in downtown Austin so people can just go out and enjoy the downtown festivities.

beardedlamb · Post by **beardedlamb** » December 31st, 2006, 12:14 pm

this is really happenin for real, ya'll.

5:30 at City Hall or any time after, give me a cowel.

5one2 2nine3 1nineoh5

improv UP,
beard

Wesley · Post by **Wesley** » January 1st, 2007, 6:54 pm

How'd it go?

beardedlamb · Post by **beardedlamb** » January 2nd, 2007, 11:34 am

i'm nonplussed at best. there were mostly families and not so much art fans. i guess it's kind of a fake art thing couched as a family outing. boo. boring. not a lot of our demographic, but we still were able to hand some flyers out and talk to some folks about shows.
not a complete bust, but not as exciting as i had hoped.

Miggy · Post by **Miggy** » January 2nd, 2007, 2:59 pm

Was it different last year? A friend of mine choreographed a site-specific dance for the escalators at the Wells Fargo building and he was happy both with the quantity and quality of his audience.

This was my first new year's in Austin and I considered staying downtown but it got invaded early by families and people who were just generally inexperienced in coming down here (lots of driving the wrong way on one-way streets, not looking before crossing the street, etc...) which made me want to get the hell out of town so I did. I think that's kind of the point, though (the new faces, not the driving the wrong way). How many of them are art fans?? Yah - I'm guessing not as many. First Thursday is probably the better bet for us.

Separately, the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Asssociation (DANA) annual membership meeting is coming up in two weeks and I'll plug the AIC as usual. I've said it before but DANA's demographic is similar to ours (late twenties / early thirties single male professionals mostly). Perhaps not all art lovers - but interested in entertainment and not interested in driving (sorry Coldtowne). I hope some of them are coming out since I started chatting it up a couple of months ago.

Also - and this is kind of out there, but I had an excellent conversation on my flight back from New York with a young but very intelligent west point grad in the army up in Kileen. She was very interested and said that most of the folks up there do come into Austin if they want to go out, but unless they grew up here, they don't really know what to do. It seemed improbable to me but I have a different frame of reference. Anyway - is there any outreach we could do to the folks at Ft. Hood? Maybe a benefit performance or something? Build some buzz to where they'll consider us for some of their time off? Perhaps Mike K. or other ex-military can give us some perspective if that's a good idea.

Anyway - sorry it didn't turn out better

shando · Post by **shando** » January 2nd, 2007, 3:46 pm

Miggy wrote: This was my first new year's in Austin and I considered staying downtown but it got invaded early by families and people who were just generally inexperienced in coming down here (lots of driving the wrong way on one-way streets, not looking before crossing the street, etc...) which made me want to get the hell out of town so I did. I think that's kind of the point, though (the new faces, not the driving the wrong way). How many of them are art fans?? Yah - I'm guessing not as many. First Thursday is probably the better bet for us.

As both a member of a family and an art fan, can we please kill this ridiculous stereotype? How can a downtown filled with people, albeit non-intersting ones who have had the audacity to live past age 32, there to see artistic events be ruled out of hand as people not interested in art? How would we feel if our audience was thought of as non art fans because they saw comedy shows?

I was downtown for over 5 hours for First Night and I saw a vibrant community putting on performances for all kinds of people. And it was packed and well-attended. Yes, many of them had families and a lot of them would not necessarily be interested in our shows, but to label them as not interested in art, well, that's just a bit narcissistic and improv-centric I would say.

kbadr · Post by **kbadr** » January 2nd, 2007, 3:55 pm

I think the real problem Sunday evening was that there were families who had their attention divided between the parade, food, and chasing their children around who were distracted by the parade and food. And they're probably not our target audience simply because people with kids don't get to go out nearly as much as those of who haven't reproduced yet.

shando · Post by **shando** » January 2nd, 2007, 4:01 pm

kbadr wrote:I think the real problem Sunday evening was that there were families who had their attention divided between the parade, food, and chasing their children around who were distracted by the parade and food. And they're probably not our target audience simply because people with kids don't get to go out nearly as much as those of who haven't reproduced yet.

Exactly. It has nothing to do with one's affinity toward 'art.'

Jules · Post by **Jules** » January 2nd, 2007, 4:11 pm

shando wrote:
kbadr wrote:I think the real problem Sunday evening was that there were families who had their attention divided between the parade, food, and chasing their children around who were distracted by the parade and food. And they're probably not our target audience simply because people with kids don't get to go out nearly as much as those of who haven't reproduced yet.
Exactly. It has nothing to do with one's affinity toward 'art.'

Agreed. Here's the thing. A lot of people with children actually would LOVE to go out and see great.....art, music, comedy, dance you name it. Its just that a) the good stuff happens late and b) the cover PLUS the sitting fee can seem daunting and in this case c) they had kids with them and that doesn't work bringing them to a comedy show.

We breedery types have made choices and we are cool with it mostly, but its not that we are uninteresting, just making choices. There is probably a way to reach "us" though. We do have some dolla and want to get out.

kbadr · Post by **kbadr** » January 2nd, 2007, 4:16 pm

We could make the price of admission be a child. I'm sure there are some parents who wouldn't mind getting rid of a kid to see a good show. Then we can train the children to be improvisers and Andy can be a Johnstone-inspired Fagen.

Jules · Post by **Jules** » January 2nd, 2007, 4:19 pm

We could set up the upstairs theater as a makeshift kinderzoo and charge parents to drop their kids off while they go downstairs for drink and comedy! No there wouldn't be ANY problems with that!

Mo Daviau · Post by **Mo Daviau** » January 2nd, 2007, 4:23 pm

You need to have insurance and be bonded as a licensed childcare facility!!