PHEW!

It happens every year; we open the online bookings and for the first hour carnage ensues. Irritating as it is, it is sometimes sheer weight of traffic but the hackles do go up when those who support us technically always act surprised at the volume. A few issues came up yesterday that were a first for us although those same techies tell us that none of this is new - of course not. Well readers of this blog and followers of my Twitter made their feelings known and gave us the odd heads up. New systems are in the pipeline. At one point we had three different servers in different parts of the world suffering the screaming hab dabs for one reason or another. Eventually we opened the phones. Several thousand tickets were sold yesterday alone. Hard hats and saline drips have been prepared for Monday. St Johns Ambulance might have to be in attendance too.
One obvious cause of the rush is the ten pound ticket allocation. Hardly surprising. A couple of thousand went on sale online yesterday and had gone within the blink of an eye. Another couple of thousand go on sale on Monday via the phone (not everybody has online access) and no doubt others will be disappointed. It is frustrating that we cannot give more - Dannii Minogue still hasn't sent the cheque (see earlier blog post if that confuses you). The temptation is to start restricting how many one person can buy of these tickets and perhaps we will look at a booking period just for ten pound seats, stagger their release etc. Making it as fair as possible for everybody is the real challenge.
I am working on a scheme whereby companies and donors can contribute units of money to specifically subsidise further blocks of ten pound seats....more anon. My personal aim is to get up to ten thousand seats at £10 in the season. These would be spread evenly across the six for the first five thousand seats as they are now and then donors could decide what productions they would like to enable people to see. Obviously we need to work out details but watch this space. It might take a while to get to that golden figure of 10,000 but don't bet against us getting there. We will need a better box office system though!

Grumpy

I have decided that getting ahead of schedule can be a frustrating experience; you start to grumble when contractors can't take up the earlier slot that has now opened up for them. That then leaves you with empty days that you frantically try to fill with other smaller jobs. I'm not complaining because clearly it beats being behind schedule but the trick, I suppose, is to give each job less time next year (then you will fall behind schedule but will have a month long "safety period" to fall back on). The mezzanine has fair flown up in two days and it sits proudly alone like a giant modern sculpture beneath the vast roof. Just the glass to go in and we will be able to have a party on it although guests would have to climb the zip tower to get onto the floor. There might be a PR opportunity right there.

Talking of which, I was sent a copy of an interview with James and I in this months festival edition of 'Opera' magazine. The writer, Nick Kimberley, in composing a very good piece, has quoted me as referring to myself as a 'melodramatic Italian tart'. I could tell who in the office was reading it by the hoots and snorts of recognition. I can't blame Nick for the fact that in the industry magazine, in which one would like to present oneself as a serious opera professional, one has caricatured oneself thus. Alas, one has to accept its truth. This crashed home to me this morning as I flounced out of the house muttering Neapolitan profanities at Fiora's wilful truculence over playing with the forbidden fruits of Sally's make-up bag. Melodramatic Italian tarts make no concession to the fact that her second birthday is still five months away.

I look forward to tonight when my children's school indulge in an evening of operatic endeavour. In such an environment, melodramatic Italian tarts are tolerated.

Up we go...

The mezzanine starts to take shape. We are a little ahead of schedule...

X Factor and free tickets

Today's post will seem a little surreal but be patient with me.
Last night I had a peculiar dream in which I was watching a programme on TV that was a strange hybrid of the 'X Factor' and 'Britain's got talent' and Dannii Minogue began to launch into a tirade about young people not seeing enough opera (there had been a vaguely operatic act on stage). Anyway if you are still with me, hang on in there. Dannii said that she thought that all young people needed were free tickets. Then, oddly, the actor who plays the religious guy in Eastenders - who also happens to be a serial killer - Don somebody or other - came on stage to talk to Dannii; actually this is not so odd because years ago that actor did play a non-singing role in a production of Beggar's Opera at Holland Park. Alora, this actor told Dannii about this place called Opera Holland Park who give 1200 free tickets to young people (by now I was beside myself, phoning James and urging him to turn to the channel on which this huge publicity coup was happening).
Dannii vehemently proclaimed that 1200 was not enough and asked how much it would cost to provide 5000 free tickets and said she and her fellow judges, including Simon Cowell who was sitting beside her nodding in agreement, would put up the money. Don, the serial killing preacher, was impressively on top of his game and told Dannii it would cost £116,000 which is pretty much spot on.
"I would do anything", said Dannii sincerely, "to get you young buggers to the opera. This Holland Park place is going to get a big surprise tomorrow!" And the audience rose to roar her on. Meanwhile I was frantically trying to phone the programme to tell her where to send the money. And then I woke up with a horrible anxiety because I thought she would never find out where to send the cheque.
Now, that entire dream was absolutely how it happened. And when you stop to think about it, that is all it would take to genuinely bring our young people into theatres too. Just theatres - you know, pick up a paper, check the listings, go to an opera. Not dressed in pop garb, no stadium spectacles, failed pop singers or rags to riches pub karaoke singers. Just good old fashioned cultural experience given a great big kick up the arse start with a hundred grand of cash.
I'm getting in touch with Dannii's agent today and everybody reading this should mail it to everybody you know -let's get the X Factor doimg some good!

Port out...

I view a glass of port as a luxury at the best of times but on a Monday night it is positively indulgent. I bought a bottle on impulse when I was feeling chilled and damp after an hour on site - the weather has turned most un-spring like again. Still, never fear, a small long range weather forecasting outfit in Cambridge somehwere (odd because they get the prevailing weather last of all over that way) have said we are due the hottest summer since 1976 or since Emperor Hadrian was in the hot seat or some such elongated passage of time.

Good. The rain was horizontal today and you'd get wet standing at the centre of the covered space at the theatre.

The mezzanine is prepared and will rise from the ground tomorrow like some constructivist set (or a giant Meccano house - pick your own cultural reference). People are starting to gaze through the fence at the build.

I'm drowning my anxieties in an ever growing catalogue of chaotic late Italian opera - Giordano's Mala Vita is the latest.