We are coming up on 10 months in business this month – here’s the lowdown on what we’ve been up to:
VIP Patron Program
Our VIP Patron program is something we’ve been working on for a while, and we finally pulled the trigger earlier this month.
Patron programs are not unusual in the theater and symphony world, but you don’t see them much in smaller venues like ours. I was inspired to put something together for The 443 by a small live music venue in South Carolina, and I’m so glad I did.
Even though we’ve had a bunch of our loyal customers inquire about how they could support us, I wasn’t sure what to expect when we launched. I knew we would have a few people sign up, but I was pleasantly surprised at the positive response.
Within 24 hours we had 8 people signed up, and at the end of week one, we had 14 people registered. As I type this, we are up to 25.
How freaking cool is that???
The program will be evolving as we go along as we figure out what works and what we can do to add value for our friends who chose to sign up. Terry Bowers was one of the first people to register and she pointed out that our drink discounts are only on alcoholic beverages, which leaves out our non-drinking supporters. So, we’re working on adding some good stuff that doesn’t leave out teetotaler music lovers.
The most popular perk of the Patron program has been the ability to reserve seats for our ticketed shows.
The sightlines are good in our room no matter where you are, but because our seating is so eclectic, everyone has their favorite spot. Our patrons can make sure their group sits in their preferred chairs, sofa or barstools.
I’m working on standardizing our room set up for ticketed events so I can post a room layout and make it easier to choose your seats.
TACOS & BLANCOS
Like many of our friends, we were huge fans of the long-running Sunday brunch residency Los Blancos had in Armory Square, affectionately referred to as “Sunday Services”.
I mean, what’s better than rockin’ roots music, dancing in the aisles, yummy food and cocktails on a Sunday afternoon?
Not much, my friends…not much.
Jimmy and I have been talking about doing something with Los Blancos on Sundays since before we opened our doors, but since we don’t have a kitchen and can’t offer a real brunch, we weren’t quite sure if it made sense. Offering our standard panini/wrap/salad menu didn’t feel like the right thing to do, and we don’t really book full bands due to the size of the room, so we never did anything with it.
After some prodding from our friend Patrick, we decided to make the leap and “Tacos & Blancos” was born.
As anyone who has been to my house can attest, a taco bar has been a staple at my patio parties at home for years. After all, who doesn’t like tacos? We can’t cook anything at the cafe, but tacos are easily accomplished with Crock-pots and fun toppings.
We ended up with a packed room of happy humans grooving to the music.
Photo Credit: Brian Cornish
It went so well, we’re exploring doing it on a regular basis. What do you think?
SOLD OUT!
We’ve worked hard to market all the amazing music we have on our calendar and it’s paid off this fall with a bunch of sold-out shows.
Jeffrey Gaines played our room back in April and very nearly sold out – I think we had 4 or 5 seats left. When he returned in October we sold out completely, so we decided to commemorate the occasion with a trophy:
Mike Powell sold out his first show with us in just a couple weeks, so he got one too:
Followed by bluegrass duo Kate Lee and Forrest O’Connor:
Chris Trapper was close, but we still had about 6 tickets left…and our upcoming Soundcheck 40th Anniversary Concert on December 1 sold out in just 4 hours!
We’re beyond thrilled to sell these shows out, but we hate to disappoint the folks who wanted to go and missed out, so one of the perks of our VIP Patron program is advance notice for our ticketed events. If you want to make sure you don’t get shut out of a great show, become a Patron.
Change in Hours
We decided last week to change our hours of operation – we are no longer open during the day unless we have an event scheduled.
I explained in detail why we made that decision in a blog post I published yesterday, you can read that HERE.
Here’s the short version –
Our daytime business hasn’t shown any signs of growth in the 10 months we’ve been open, but our evening business has been increasing like crazy. It became impossible for me to work open to close every day and stay on top of all the necessary behind the scenes stuff, especially with the increased volume at night. Aside from that, being on my feet on a terrazzo floor for 90 hours a week has created some painful physical symptoms.
It’s the right thing to do, but I’m nervous about it. Limiting our hours means we have less time to hit our sales goals, and we are not a big room. I’m hoping that freeing up the time and brain space to create more compelling events will make it all work.
The Future of The 443
We have definitely made some big adjustments to our game plan for the room over the last few months.
We created a unique space with our funky living rooms and warm friendly vibe. We thought this type of room would be a great place for people to work on their laptops, take meetings over coffee, or enjoy intimate conversations with a friend, both during the day AND at night. Our lack of success in this area has been frustrating.
A long-time friend of mine who owns a successful bar downtown recently commented that we have a fantastic concept – but a terrible location.
He’s right AND wrong about that.
He’s right that we do not have the walk-up business and built-in traffic that Armory Square, Hanover Square or Westcott Street have…and that hurts us during the times we don’t have anything scheduled. If we were trying to be a standard-issue bar without the live music focus, I’m sure we would have closed our doors already. On the other hand, it wouldn’t help us to have drunk college kids falling in our door during ticketed, listening room style shows. From that standpoint, it’s better that we are a destination venue for people who are truly into what we’re doing.
We never planned on managing such a full calendar of events. We thought we would have at least a couple nights a week without anything scheduled so people could just meet for drinks and conversation, run 3-4 events a week and then have our coffee and lunch business during the day. But early on we discovered that if we don’t book an event, nobody shows up.
Like, literally nobody.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful for all the people who come to our events. We’ve seen a big surge in our evening business, we are selling out shows, and October was our highest sales month since we opened…and that’s a very good thing.
But I recognize that being a venue that is 100% event-driven is risky. If I guess wrong on booking and nobody buys tickets, then what? We are a small room and there is definitely a cap on what we can accomplish. Will that be enough to support this venture? Syracuse is a small town…are there enough people going out to see live music to make this work?
Discontinuing our day hours is the right thing to do, but it means that we have a very small window in a very small venue to hit our numbers…and frankly, that is TERRIFYING.
But –
We are selling out shows.
We have more people walking in our doors than ever.
We are introducing our guests to the powerful magic of a songwriter and an audience connecting on a spiritual level.
We have created a home for live, original music in a city that thinks cover bands performing underneath a big screen TV is a music scene.
We are booking crazy-good touring artists who have never stopped in Syracuse before.
We are making Syracuse a better place.
We are making a difference.
See you soon!
