Social Distancing: Modeling Venue with Social Distancing Requirements

Nothing to add but interested in hearing what others might do :-) 

Hi Michelle

This has come up for us today. Our management suggested reseating holding off seats between customers & every other row which fills us with dread, especially as many of our events are already sold out. Holding off areas on less busy shows sounds excellent. If anyone has any other bright ideas I'd love to hear them!

Thanks!

Lucy

That's definitely a tough one, Lucy. With your heavily sold shows, how are you going about re-seating everyone? Any simplifying tricks you've discovered vs. doing everything by hand? Another thing we're working through right now is how to sell socially distant seats online - we are not on TNEW, have a custom site through Adage using SmartSeat.

Hi Everyone -

I'm curious about two aspects of this that I'd love to hear from the community about: 

1. Have you done any financial modeling to see what the revenue impact would be of social distance seating, and is it seen as something that would be financially viable?

2. How does this tie into other asapects of the patron experience such as ingress/egress to the facility, concession and restroom lines, etc.? What plans are starting to take shape about how to handle social distancing at the venue beyond the seating?

Thank you for any feedback you have!

Chris Szalaj

Tessitura Network

Hi Chris, 

Had a discussion just this morning with a colleague and he has done some extensive financial modeling with 5 varying degrees of social distancing and for us, it is not at all financially viable. We would be looking at anywhere from 1M to 3M in lost ticket revenue across all products. So the impact would obviously be devastating.

We have also started the discussion with our building managers and front-of-house staff about the guest experience from entry to exit in regard to safety screenings, concessions, box office and ticket scanning operations and also changing the way we do our pre-concert talks to prevent the need for cleaning in between. The below are some of the notes from our discussions. 

1. Plexiglass dividers are being considered at the box office counter
2. Safety/Cleaning
   
   1. Hand sanitizer stations at all touchpoints in our facility
   2. Codified cleaning schedule and a potential video that can be shared with guests for updates and transparency
   3. Safety screening setups
      1. Bag checks were discussed during this meeting as a safety screen that would be hard to make contactless
         1. Requiring clear bags, bag size, no bags permitted was discussed as options that may need to implemented 
         2. Keys and metal could be held over their heads when passing through metal detectors to eliminate contact
3. Staff
   1. No contact thermometers 
   2. Reduction of ushers at performances to keep less people around the entrances
   3. Self-serve programs stations in order to prevent contact among ushers and guests
      1. Discussed digitizing all programs for smartphone use
   2. Social distancing in the auditorium 
      
      1. Late seating would need to be a part of these discussions as guests would have to climb over others to get to their seats

Best,

Michelle Lewandowski

Thanks Michelle, I appreciate the info. 

Hi Michelle, what about the orchestra on stage? And what is your timeline currently for re-opening? Jenn

Great discussion  Thank you.  We are just beginning planning our season so we have the benefit of learning from others as we don't resume until the fall.  We've been trying to figure out a plan on how to sell "socially distanced seats"....is there a way to have seats automatically blocked out once a patron purchases specific seats?   I can see how we could manage if all sales were done by the box office staff, but have no idea about managing web sales.  The entire concept feels way above what I know how to do in Tessitura.  I look forward to hearing more, and appreciate the sharing of information as this feels a bit overwhelming...keeping staff and patrons informed, safe and confident.

We've been discussing it most certainly, hoping to have shows back on in the fall. This may be at odds with your goals of not moving people around too much, but I just wanted to share what we've been considering: 

1. Cabaret Style seating - a few shows we're hoping to do would work well for this format anyway, so we're looking into building a new facility for this type of seating. I've seen other posts through the forums in which patrons would purchase a "Cabaret" seat and be seated by ushers when the arrive. 
2. Zoned seating - I've heard of other companies having patron purchase a general admission zoned seat. EX: a Zone A ticket is for general admission to the orchestra/floor/etc. seating. Once you arrive, you can sit wherever you'd like in that zone, and self select your level of social distancing. 
3.  Limiting House Sizes in general - instead of a full show being around 200 seats for us, we're looking at doing longer runs with smaller houses, and blocking out seats to allow for purchasers to social distance themselves.
4. Eliminating Fixed Seats Packages - this is definitely just an idea floating around. We haven't started renewals so we are in an okay place to reconsider our entire strategy, and allow for more on the fly seating while eliminating attachments to particular seats. This would be a membership/voucher type model, where you purchase a membership and get access to all of the season's shows based on availability. 

I don't know of any of the financial modeling, but wanted to drop in some ideas floating that I've seen/heard.

-Ashleigh