By Thomas Corlin | the Friday, February 12, 2021 | Diffusion, booking
Opened in November 2019, the Comedy of Nîmes (Gard) has been offering streamed and paid shows every Sunday since January. This young café-theater is already planning to continue this offer after the crisis, aimed at disabled audiences, and to amortize its technical investment by offering recordings to the companies hosted.
How have you used video support since the start of the crisis?
During the first confinement, there was a craze: everyone made it from home, the public followed, it was a question of keeping the link over a period that we imagined short, before resuming a normal activity. So I launched a mini-series, “Maison Break”, a parody of “Prison Break”, and uploaded songs.
Then, during the second confinement, the interest in the support had disappeared, the streams were less numerous, everyone was bored, and the situation was so overwhelming that the heart was no longer there. However, we wanted to reuse the tool more extensively to maintain a link with the public.
Like other theaters in our branch (Apollo in Paris, Improvidence in Lyon), we have invested in equipment: three HD cameras, placed at different points in the room, and two ambient microphones, attached to the above the stage by a sound engineer friend.
We set a price at 8 euros per household. At 5 euros for example, we would have been too close to free
We contacted actors to offer them to play in live conditions. There are two live slots on Sunday, one at 10:30 am, aimed at young audiences, and another at 3:00 pm, oriented towards humor and adults. They all had a certain apprehension, before playing the game: some adapted their show, integrated looks at the camera, etc.
To put them in the mood, the room was not empty. Without a spectator, without laughter, without applause, the experience is inhuman. We therefore invited students from our theater workshop, and three other actors. We added model busts with famous actor heads between them, and it all made it look like there was an audience in the room.
A form of interaction was tested: for the 3pm improvisation session, the audience commented on theme suggestions. The public reacted very well on the whole: we received pictures of spectators preparing in front of their screens or videos of children dancing during the show for young audiences.
These are paid sessions, how did you set the price?
Both indoors and online, there is a free trend that we think is damaging. During the Festival Off d’Avignon, many companies fill up by inviting spectators when their hall is not full, to show that they are successful to any programmers present during the performance. As a result, the public gets used to free, and that’s problematic.
It’s the same online. An artist performs, a room is organized, all of this is work, and that has a price. We set a price at 8 euros per household. Indoors, the seat is 15 to 18 euros, which would have been too expensive for an online show. On the other hand, at 5 euros for example, we would have been too close to free.
Do you plan to keep this tool after the takeover?
We have already scheduled a few Sundays, varying the aesthetics. A priori, we see this operation as a parenthesis to stay in touch with our audience, to work and make actors work. We don’t want to empty our room by putting the livestream forward. Nevertheless, we plan to offer streaming shows in parallel with our main indoor activity, but directing the support towards the excluded audiences. For example, we are in contact with a prison, and we could offer them a special rate.
In addition, now that we are equipped with audiovisual equipment, we can offer actors and companies who come to play with us, or others, to do their recording. Often, they only have low-quality, recent videos to show to professionals, mainly because professional capture is very expensive. We can offer one at a low price to amortize our investment.
How is your place going through the crisis?
The hardest part are the false hopes of reopening.
The hardest part are the false hopes of reopening, which entail costs, especially in communication, and a lot of disappointment. Other than that, our place is doing relatively well thanks to its small size. We opened in November 2019, and were an immediate success because there was a lack of such a room in this area. We closed 4 months later with the first confinement, then exceptionally reopened in summer with gauges to 35 people (the room can accommodate 50). We gave 2 dates per weekend, compared to 5 from Thursday to Sunday in normal times. These moments of reopening did not always meet the expected audience, but it was important to play.
The place does not generate a lot of costs, we are only two employees, we did the work ourselves, so the help allows us to get by. Other places that we know well suffer much more, alas.
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