Oakland Leaving Downtown

[Towntalk]

Tell ya what, have  City Council create a Department of Entertainment and hire an Executive Director and four aids, one for each side of town and give them a budget of $100,000.00 that will go to supporting every entertainment venue in town except DeYor; Stambaugh Auditorium; Youngstown Playhouse; and Easy Street Productions, and have a standing ticket cost at $1.50 for adults and .25 cents for children under 18. and .75 cents for Senior Citizens over 75. That $100,000.00 split 4 ways would allow $25,000.00 for each side of town.

[jay]

I remember one councilman talked about creating a directory of businesses in his ward.  This sounded like a good idea.  If the directory was completed and distributed, I never saw one.

[PD]

Jay
How would you suggest Gillam promote the Oakland?
Facebook? Twitter? Patronizing? Telling people to go there?  How about they put up their own personal funds to advertise for the business?
There comes a point where the business itself needs to market and advertise.
How is it a council persons job to push business to all locations in their Ward?
I think that's part of the problem that so many people think government is supposed to do everything for them and that's why they don't succeed
The city has an Econ dev department that is supposed to help with these things but you and i both know that is poorly run
it sure is easy to blame the council person for everything

[Towntalk]

The only way that Gillam would promote any business in her district is if there was old hard cash handed to her.
Unfortunately in the case of Oakland, as PD pointed out, many of the shows are not for everyone. People will not "support" any venue that they wouldn't attend.

[jay]

What could the councilman do?  Try promoting the Oakland and other businesses in the ward.  If the councilman doesn't champion the assets of the ward, who will?

This applies to all of the councilman in the city and the wards they represent.

[PD]

Plus the venues at the Oakland are not for everyone

[Towntalk]

  Most likely right on all points.    Easy Street Productions doesn't seem to have any problems except getting publicity here and where is all the publicity for the Youngstown Playhouse, yet they are the oldest continuous operating community theater in the United States. Apparently, except for one person who will go nameless, these venues would get no publicity here. And what good has the PR here for Oakland done? Oh, and don't mention the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra. All these are the Arts in Youngstown crown jewels, yet judging by the amount of publicity they get here,they don't exist.

[PD]

I think this was more of a rental thing right?
They just weren't getting the income they needed or maybe they are changing venues in the future
Maybe they didn't have the volunteers or support to put anything meaningful on

[Towntalk]

What could Annie do if the Oakland wasn't selling enough tickets to pay the bills? You forget that Oakland may have volunteer actors and behind the scenes people, but they have a lot of expenses that go with each production they do ... royality fees on the plays ... royality fees on the music ... union fees for the musicians ... costume costs ... utilities expenses ... rent. This is why so many community theaters go under, especially in cities that already have other local community theaters that are on a stronger footing.

[jay]

Did the first ward councilman do anything to prevent the Oakland from leaving downtown Youngstown?

[Towntalk]

http://www.vindy.com/news/2015/mar/05/oakland-leaves-home-cancels-rest-of-seas/