Now that the expenses have been paid for our first main concert of the year, we have a better outlook on how the year is shaping up on the financial front.
Our ensemble puts on 4 main chamber music concerts throughout the year, and these are the largest expenses with artist fees, accommodation, travel, and publicity and printing. This lead concert of the year was going to be the most expensive one.... with a larger playing ensemble, but locally based so that we were paying much more in artist fees but less in accommodation and travel. It has been our tradition (after one year..) to lead the year with a locally based lineup... it helps to build up goodwill and traction in our base audience, and reiterates our desire to help develop and grow the local Early Music community.
We originally had larger plans for our second year... but we ended up scaling back one of the more ambitious plans for the third concert due to the lack of success in winning an arts grant. We had one in our first year, and that was a surprise to everyone... but we weren't able to repeat the magic in the second year. Anyway, that wasn't a real loss as we finished the first year with a decent buffer and we fell back onto our contingency planning with the smaller third concert.
If our very conservative financial projections were correct, then we should have been able to increase our buffer in this coming year and then we could burn through a small amount of it in the third year to present the postponed concert. Of course, given a more optimistic projection, we could have done the concert anyway... and we would likely have been okay, but we decided it wasn't worth the risk at this stage of our very young startup!
However, this last main concert drew in much more in ticket revenue than expected... and that has put us in a much healthier financial position... in fact, this is roughly where would have expected to be at the END of the year! Plus, we had a few side concerts and projects that we decided to put the fees back into the ensemble instead... and then a decent sized donation from a supporter that has now put us in a completely different place than we would have expected!
So, the temptation is there to expand the second and third concerts in scope... my wife is acting as the treasurer of the non-profit, and I'm sort of the artistic director. We are both pretty conservative financially, but I do let my ideas run a bit... and I'm still a little bit further out on the risk profile than her. I suggested that we could have a student join us in both the 2nd and 3rd concerts, and a full professional from interstate for the third as well.
However, she disagreed on the student for the 2nd concert... that was always going to be a light personnel concert with just herself and me to keep costs down. The concert that would buffer up reserves for future use.
However, on the third concert... we did agree to have an interstate professional join us.... and we are still a bit in discussion about the student part. We do want to have more students join us on stage as that is how we are training them... basically by having them appear on stage and in rehearsals alongside us, so more the apprentice model and hands-on model of training.
We also have another large education project that is awaiting confirmation of funding support before we decide what form it will take. At the moment, if funding is successful, then we could present a decently large sized ensemble of mostly strings with a couple of winds that would be a great moment to try and gain some traction and awareness in the student musicians... but if not, then I think we are likely to try a smaller model where we have a tighter smaller group of handpicked students that we are trying train for future concert partners.
Anyway, due to the unexpected good fortune at the start of the year, we are (well, mostly me...) starting let our imaginations run a little wilder about what is possible for the year. But my wife is keeping a cooler head, and suggesting that we stick to the original planning for the year and not to try and over-reach...
I know that she is right... but it is SOOOO TEMPTING!
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