We’re coming up on our 3 year anniversary here at the 443, and it’s been quite a ride.
While original live music has always been our main focus, we started out trying to be a coffee house during the day and open as a “regular bar” in the evenings when we didn’t have a show scheduled. Neither scenario worked out all that well, and eventually, we figured out it made more sense to stay in our lane and focus our time and energy ON THE MUSIC.
We bring exceptionally good touring artists to Syracuse, often for the very first time. We are a home for original music. We book the best local musicians in Central New York. We keep music front and center. It’s not background music – our artists are not competing with television sets, pool tables, and dartboards. We give musicians a space to share the stories behind the songs, and we encourage the crowd to take their noses out of their phones and be present in the moment.
YES.
ALL OF THAT.
With COVID in the mix, changing restrictions, and being closed for most of 2020, reopening briefly with heavy restrictions, then being closed for most of 2021, it’s been challenging… and WEIRD.
Super weird.
As we close out 2021, our entire business model has evolved into something completely different. We have gradually moved from customers ordering food and drink at the bar, to partial table service, to 100% table service. It makes the most sense because most of our shows are “listening room” style – which means noise is kept to a minimum, and the last thing we want is people milling around the room.
All good, right? You can relax, enjoy the show, and our rock star crew will deliver food and drink right to your table… it’s a pretty sweet setup.
Except when it’s not.
Sometimes, we have whole tables that won’t order food OR drink. Sometimes, we have guests who are actually annoyed when we try to wait on them.
And here’s the problem with that –
People buy a ticket or pay a cover charge to attend our shows, and of course, we appreciate their enthusiastic presence. But, we keep very little and sometimes none of that money. The majority of it goes to the artist gracing our stage. We keep ourselves in business by selling food and drink.
We have always been transparent about what’s involved in running the 443, so I’m going to lay out exactly what this looks like. Let’s do some math, shall we?
Scenario #1:
We book a touring artist. Our deal is a $500 guarantee vs a 75/25 ticket split, whichever is greater. That means, no matter what happens (even if only 4 people show up) we agree to pay them $500. But if ticket sales are more than $500, the artist gets 75% of the money and we get 25%. Ideally, that 25% will at least cover paying our sound tech and the person checking tickets at the door.
For context – $500 is on the lower end of touring artist guarantees. The industry standard for ticket splits is anywhere from 60/40 to 80/20.
Our tickets can be anywhere from $10 to $30, occasionally higher. For the sake of argument, let’s say tickets are $15. We can sell about 85 of them.
If we only sell 20 tickets, we gross $300. The band gets their $500 guarantee, and we are -$350 after paying the sound tech and the door person.
If we sell 45 tickets (a decent crowd in our room), we gross $675. The artist gets $506.25, we get $168.75, which covers our sound tech and door person and leaves us $18.75.
If we completely sell out, we gross $1275. The artist gets $956.25, we get $318.75. That leaves us $168.75 after paying the sound tech and door person.
A sold-out room is literally the best possible scenario and if we do this with a $15 ticket, we only keep $168.75.
Scenario #2:
We book a local artist. Their guarantee is $250, and we charge a $5 cover.
If 20 people come in the door, we take in $100. After paying the band their guarantee, plus the tech and door person we are -$300.
If we have 45 people paid we take in $225. We still pay the artist $250, plus the sound tech and door person. We are -$175.
If we sell to capacity, we take in $425. After paying the artist, sound tech, and door person, we keep $25.
Obviously, if we have a bigger band with a bigger guarantee, the numbers look even worse…so it’s not hard to see why we are booking fewer and fewer local bands these days and raising the cover charges on the ones we keep on our calendar.
You don’t have to be a math wizard to realize that we cannot stay afloat if tickets and cover charges are the only revenue we have coming in. We rely on selling food and drink to our customers, and that revenue has to cover ALL other expenses – rent, utilities, insurance, payroll, licenses/permits, ASCAP/BMI/SEASAC, trash removal, linen service, maintenance costs, and advertising. This may sound harsh, but we simply can’t afford to allow guests to come in and take up space without making a purchase.
We have a shocking number of people who come in and don’t want to buy a thing or are put out when I tell them they can’t bring their own beverages in. I suspect most people don’t realize that most of the money we take in at the door does not go to us. But if you aren’t making a purchase during your 3-4 hour visit to the 443 you are occupying the seat of someone who will – so you are actually costing us money.
Not to mention, you are actively pushing us closer to the day we close our doors.
So – we’ve created a new policy more in line with the way we currently operate. Moving forward, we have a $15 per person minimum purchase required for anyone attending a show, which can be any combination of food or drink. If booze is not your thing, we have plenty of NA options, plus tasty menu items to nibble on while you enjoy the music.
If you attend comedy shows, you’re already familiar with the “2 drink minimum” policy. Jazz clubs and other venues offering table service all have some sort of minimum purchase requirement, we’re just a little late to the game. It’s something we should have adopted as soon as we switched to the table service model in the fall of 2020, but as I mentioned – things have been pretty weird since we reopened.
This policy will take effect for all shows beginning January 1, 2022.
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.
