How to open a theater agency

* The calculations use the average data for the World

From ancient times, the population demanded bread and circuses. Over the centuries-old history of mankind, nothing has practically changed; people need rest and a pleasant pastime. The theater is one of the most ancient inventions, designed to diversify a person’s leisure, over time it has turned into a full-fledged branch of art, in which many people work, which they study, live.

In the modern world, going to the theater is generally considered to be the lot of the intelligentsia of the old school, who are alien to the entertainment of today - computer games, movies and other similar reflections of the reality of the twenty-first century. It would seem that reading books, theaters, museums have become uninteresting for modern youth, but still publishing houses live (though they do not get as much profit as they would like), museums have their visitors, and theaters even thrive and do not have difficulties attracting visitors - full rooms sold out long before the premiere of tickets are not uncommon in a theater institution today.

However, all this applies only to large theaters in big cities, which have a well-known name and a good cast, which attracts spectators with the game and really gives pleasure from watching the production. In the provinces, the situation with theaters is very sad; those institutions that were not closed a few years ago are now experiencing their worst days — there are almost no visitors, and those are just schoolchildren from the nearest school whom the literature teacher dragged into the play just because it is studied according to the school curriculum, and the director needs to pretend that he is engaged in social work. Actors are hired from local lovers who play only in their free time from the main job for a symbolic fee.

In fact, a person who is interested in art and once visited the theater, where the performance was staged by a real, versed and creative director, will forever fall in love with the theater. This may seem surprising, but a theater can actually be more interesting than a movie theater and even visiting Internet spaces. To each his own, as you know, but his lovers went to the theater, will go and will go.

Knowing about this position of the theater in the modern world, one can easily understand that theatrical institutions earn good money, because there is a client. Many people want to take part in the theater, only some prefer to remain spectators, while others dream of working in an acting troupe, performing at the venues of eminent theaters. To address the needs of both, there are theater agencies that will lead viewers to the theater and help actors enter the stage.

Often, a theater agency is only involved in promoting beginners and not only talents, looking for theater establishments or just events in which their services may be required. It should be noted right away that this is a rather troublesome business, but mediation has always been a very profitable undertaking, requiring little cost.

In order to organize your own company, which offers services for the agent promotion of theater actors, as well as for organizing cultural events, you will need a standard registration of a business entity with an indication of the code (OKPD 2) 90.02 Services to support the performing arts and (OKPD 2) 93.29 Services in other areas of entertainment and recreation.

A self-respecting agency should have an office representation, so you should think about renting a room if it is not owned. It is unlikely that it will be possible to work only through the Internet, although creating your own website is necessary, it will become a good platform for attracting customers and posting your own information. In order to rent an office, you will need from 20 thousand rubles, located best in the central areas of the city for the convenience of future customers. You can rent a small room in a business center, if it turns out to be economically feasible.

Large areas for the company will not be required, because the props will not have to be stored - this concern will remain under the responsibility of the actors with whom cooperation will take place, but still a small warehouse in the form of a separate room will be allocated, because in the future work during the organization of events some equipment may stored at the agency itself, which imposes an obligation on its contents, and not interfering with the workflow of employees. After all, these people will be constantly busy with business, they will have to look for representatives of one side: directors, actors or full-fledged troupes or creative groups, musicians, artists and other people who are ready to play for money, and the other: theaters, concert venues, clubs, sports facilities (they often host cultural events in their free time from competitions), recreation parks and the like.

The staff should be trained in working with people, have sociability, and organizational experience is desirable. Employees recruited from the street will not be able to effectively fulfill their obligations, unless they are previously trained (and this is an additional cost); initially you need to rely on the fact that the team must remain united and united - then work will become much more productive. Young professionals who are full of desire to work are well suited for this role. Depending on the size of the city or the geographic area covered and, accordingly, the number of cooperation agreements, the staff can count from three people who need a manager. An entrepreneur can independently take a leading position, personally taking part in the activities of the agency, which will save money and involvement in the process.

When the office is rented, all employees are hired, office equipment (which will cost from 70 thousand rubles) is purchased, you can begin to search for the first customers. For this, as mentioned above, you will need your own website and Internet access from the office for all employees. To create your page on the Internet (domain registration, hosting, website development) you need to invest from 20 thousand rubles, the higher the functionality of the site, the more the amount will be needed.

Most agencies work "from the person", that is, they find a beginner acting team and begin to engage in its promotion. This is similar to production activity, only here the agency does not invest its own funds, but receives a commission on the amount paid to the troupe. It is best to start the search among beginner creative teams, not disdaining work with people from the province, because the origin of a person is not important for the manifestation of talent. Unpretentious provincial artists will agree to a less interesting and paid job, so it will often be easy to arrange them, while their level will be the same as that of urban actors - amateur.

When a client comes to the agency, his data is entered into the database, which is used for further search. All possible conditions for cooperation are discussed with the visitor, what he can do and in what genres he can speak. After that, his contact details are accepted, and he goes to wait for suitable options. At this time, employees begin to try to find a suitable theater and location for the actor, often freelance artists are accepted only for the crowd in any performance or for secondary roles. If this is a completely unknown actor, then usually the collaboration with him ends after he has found the very first theater in which he will be taken on the official device, and he will lose interest in passing and one-time performances, preferring to work, albeit in the background, but all the time.

Otherwise, the situation is with actors or troupes who have already earned a name for themselves. Cooperation with them is the organization of tours, which at first will take place in one large city and its environs, then they will already begin in cities, and there it is not far from the level of the whole country. The agency will have responsibilities in finding a venue for performances, an advertising campaign in each locality and other organizational issues. In general, you need to be able to evaluate the creative potential of a new client, because there is a large percentage of talented people who seek to engage in art that is not given to them. Working with them is a deliberately losing affair, for which only time and effort will be thrown away. You can work "from the organization", finding theaters the right people for a variety of events. However, artists are in demand not only in cultural institutions, but also in advertising and event-agencies, who are looking for creative people to organize holidays at private individuals, enterprises and even conducted by municipal institutions.

If you focus on the promotion of an artist or a creative team, you can, having earned a name for him, be his full-fledged representative who solves all the issues of his work and receives a good agency fee for his work. However, it is especially difficult to break through in the field of creativity today, so if you do not come across a talented nugget, you will have to be content with the amount as a percentage of the already small fee. But there are always more enterprises willing to work, ready to provide employment, therefore, you can agree with cultural institutions to provide them with the necessary personnel, agreements with organizations will allow you to get the same percentage, but the income will be more stable.

Event agencies always need creative people, often they need a person who has extraordinary abilities, but they need them spontaneously, they do not engage in their support and development, so a theater agency that has established relationships with many artists will become a holiday organization for companies a good partner who knows the right people. The main thing is to understand that it is possible to develop and help to become famous not only for beginner theater actors, but also for musicians, artists and poets, who can also be offered to relevant institutions.

However, only two people need to be engaged in such activities (there will be few clients and contracts during the establishment of such a business, and two employees will be able to cope with the entire amount of work). Their colleague will be engaged in a slightly different direction - namely, to offer the services of theaters for the population. This does not mean that he will conduct marketing campaigns in the city, increasing people's interest in the theater as an art. Due to the fact that actually worthy cultural institutions are often found only in large cities, a large number of people are not able to watch a good performance, get to a music concert or visit an art gallery. This applies primarily to residents of the province who simply do not have such institutions or events in their locality.

Already cooperating with theaters and other cultural institutions, you can always be up to date with the upcoming premieres and the current schedule of performances, so it is possible to book tickets in advance, and then offer them to residents of nearby small towns at a slightly higher price. The main activity in this direction will be directed to schools and other educational institutions located on the periphery of a large city, the school administration will most likely agree to an organized trip of one parallel classes to attend students a cultural event. The benefit from all sides - the spectacle of the people, the theater - the sale of a large number of tickets, the agency - the benefits of mediation. The main risk is not to sell most of the tickets, but the competent work of an employee should presume the ability to offer and sell the offered service.

Offering a visit to expensive events is not worth it; the cost of one performance in a major theater can reach one and a half thousand rubles per person, the reward to the agency (which divides it in the proportion of 70% / 30% to the owner and agent, respectively), as well as transportation costs, are added here, so the total amount of the trip for one person can exceed the initial cost of a ticket is almost doubled, which not all segments of the population can afford. Therefore, it is better to find good performances, but in inexpensive theaters that offer a lower price due to the lesser known cast.

To ensure relocation, you will need to contact the transport company, but transportation on a previously purchased minibus may become an additional income. However, for transporting large groups of people one vehicle may not be enough, so the fleet can be three cars. To save money, it is recommended to purchase "GAZelle", the cost of each is about 500 thousand rubles. The car body can be decorated with the logos of your own company - an additional passive advertisement for the city. But drivers will have to pay, so such investments will not pay off very soon and are advisable only with established relations with school administrations and constant orders for cultural trips.

In addition to arranging travel of provincial residents to large cities to attend art events, you can also deal with the relocation of residents of relatively large cities to megacities, in which tours of world-famous groups can take place. Such music groups rarely visit more than two of the largest cities in the country, but fans from all suburbs are ready to go anywhere to attend a concert of their favorite stars. Since such events are relatively rare, those who wish will be ready to do anything to attend the event, paying good amounts for tickets and a trip to the venue.

Opening a theater agency will require about 150 thousand rubles, while employees will not receive a fixed salary, but a percentage of the agency commission for its intermediary services; that is, each employee receives the money that he earned by negotiating with theaters, actors or schools. If the purchase of cars is planned, then the starting capital increases by one and a half million rubles and the monthly salary is added to the salary of drivers who will not agree to work for a percentage.

It’s quite difficult to calculate the income, it all depends on how talented people fall into the agency, what the conditions and vacancies in theaters and other cultural institutions will be, how much schoolchildren will be interested in traveling, but with established and long-term relationships, you can organize an average of four visits to events month; at the same time, monthly expenses for the remuneration of drivers, utilities for the office and its rent will amount to about 90 thousand rubles. From each student, you can get up to a thousand rubles for the whole range of services (the whole trip will cost him about 2 thousand rubles), then from four trips of 40 students in each (this is just 2 classes) you will receive an income of 160 thousand rubles. And this is only that part of the work that one person is engaged in, and yet there is still a commission for cooperation with theaters and actors who are looking for each other.

Such an undertaking can become a thing of a lifetime, especially if you come across a unique talent, the development and promotion of which will provide the agency owner with a good profit.

Matthias Laudanum (c) www.clogicsecure.com - A portal to small business business plans and guides

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08/18/2019

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