Comment: My name is Wendy [Atkinson] and I work at the Chan Centre and we had a cancellation January, Ben Heppner had to cancel because of illness and we actually had to refund the tickets and about oh, I don’t know a few days after we finally done our last refunds it was rescheduled for the end of April. So sell them all again!
Sheryl: How was the audience about that? Were they very forgiving or were there angry people knocking on the door?
Wendy: Well because it was in the newspapers that he was sick so most people were fine. There were a little frustrated people who were refunded their tickets at the last minute and then had to buy them again, were a little bit frustrated with that process but otherwise okay.
Sheryl: Do you think they would come back for the April concert?
Wendy: Yeah, it’s almost sold out.
Sheryl: Yeah.
Comment: Hi Annette [Campbell] from the Canada Council again. I just want to kind of reassure the presenters that this happens all the time. There is cancellations all the time for health and I really encourage you to talk to the agent if you’ve booked through an agent because it’s in their best interest to get you a replacement who is satisfactory. So don’t be worried oh well this is a different person, is it going to be the same caliber? It’s in the agents best interest to give you someone of the same caliber so they can keep a relationship going with you in your area and I’ve seen tours where someone got sick at the last minute and the replacement, it’s spun off a new career for the artist, it really got a very enthusiastic reaction in the communities and that you know, it was phenomenally successful despite this hiccup at the beginning so, it’s not always…of course the minute you hear you go “oh no what am I going to do” but if you can just stay clam and work through it sometimes it can really be a positive experience.
Sheryl: Um hum…and again if you do run into that use the BC Touring Council as a resource. Phone up and say that we’ve had a cancellation and we can always send out an email. We don’t send them out everyday but certainly if there’s a circumstance which you know, you need some help, approach us about it. We’ll try to help you with trying to find an artist and artists are always willing to go there and perform so don’t forget that we’re here and we’re available.
I just wanted to touch base quickly on booking US and touring US. I know with booking US, one of the things I’ve encountered is a lot of questions from presenters asking me what is this withholding tax business, how do I sign the contract, in what province do we say we’re from, that sort of thing. One of things I suggest to the presenters is get to know what the rules are yourself. Quite often an artist will not be aware that they need to have a work permit or that there is a withholding tax and you could encounter problems with that if you’re not aware of the procedures yourself, so the more than you know as the presenter booking a US artist, you can ask them if they’re aware of this. You’d be surprised that many of them do want to come and tour but they’re not clear on what the rules are and if you are going to the US as an artist to tour there just to find out exactly what the paperwork is, how long it takes, that sort of thing.
I know Heather, I’ve talked to Heather quite a few times from Kitimat about what the rules are and I’ve tried to guide her through that as well. Just to give her tips and pointers and she’s learned basically to do it herself because I think she’s found the experience, and you can speak for yourself Heather…
Heather Lundstrom: It’s amazing you fooled that into thinking you have artists who actually come to Pacific Contact or if they have an agent here that they actually understand what the rules are for touring in a foreign country. Unfortunately that isn’t the case so as a presenter you are often up having to know what all the rules are so you are teaching the performer and this takes a lot of time and effort and I’m a volunteer, same with the facility, you’d be doing the same thing but you do have to know the rules because you are get dinged with that 15% withholding tax one way or another. So, it’s being aware, teaching and then kind of considering is it worth it for a small organization like ourselves [Kitimat Concert Association] we really have to think is this extra time worth it to bring in this performer when there are other Canadian performers out there and I’m sure the same thing happens in the States when they’re looking at Canadian performers but you do have to teach yourself. You can’t make those assumptions that the agents or performers are going go to know. It’s what we have to do here and they’re often quite surprised that there are different rules in Canada.
Sheryl: And different fees.
Heather: And different fees…Yeah!
Sheryl: They’re really…. Well, Bronwen through a question at me. Sorry Ian, I’ll get to you in a sec. Where do you get the info? I use the web, I go online the Canada Customs and Revenue web site. I go to US Immigration; you can call them and ask questions. They have U.S. Immigration out at the airport that I’ve actually talked to them at one point when we had a question. The Canadian Consulate, I don’t know if Ruth is here but quite often Deborah Daoust (used to be our contact) she has now left and there’s a woman by the name of Ruth Gunn. Many artists who are touring in the States have contacted them to find out what is the exact rule, withholding tax there and also the paperwork that is required. There is quite a lot of paperwork that is required for the US touring, it would be good to have somebody who is…I’ve never it done it myself but certainly someone like Susan Murphy at Green Thumb Theatre is quite an expert at doing it as they tour a lot in the U.S.
The U.S. is becoming a very lucrative market for our artists. A lot of them are going to Arts Northwest which is like a Pacific Contact but it happens in the Washington, Idaho and Oregon States and a lot of Canadian artists are going down there to showcase. It is something that BC Touring Council, last three years we’ve had workshops on touring in the US, border crossing and that sort of thing and we’ll continue probably to offer that information but Daniel maybe you could talk a little bit about what it’s like for an artist to touring there.
Daniel Dolan (Green Thumb Theatre): I’m Daniel Dolan from Green Thumb Theatre. I don’t book our artists into the United States, I focus solely on British Columbia but I do pick up information by being in the office and I’m a former stage manager who toured extensively with Green Thumb in United States. So, I’m not an expert so don’t come to me for all the advice but I can give you some anecdotal information about what happened in this last season.
For the last few years the US Immigration has made it slightly more difficult to get Visas and there’s been a few more hoops to go through to get work applications. For instance about five or six years ago they started really cracking down on stage managers traveling into the United States because their not an artist and you could hire a US stage manager to run the play which anybody whose ever stage managed a play or been an actor in a play knows it’s absolutely ridiculous, the stage manager has to be there from the beginning so that’s increasing difficulty Green Thumb faced but in particular since September 11th, they’ve really, really cracked down and for the first time ever in Green Thumb’s history, this year we had a near catastrophe in that our work permits were going to be pulled almost at the last minute and that’s because everything went according to the normal scheme of things. The applications and actually Green Thumb paid a hefty fee this year in order to be able to fast track which is something…again I’m not an expert on the U.S. touring but rather than just sort of getting que with everyone else, Green Thumb paid a fee to have our application sort of fast-tracked. Everything went fine, there was one little glitch in that they listed our port of entry as San Juan, Puerto Rico rather than Blaine, Washington so we thought they were compete ting with the San Juan Islands or something so when our tour, US Tour Director, Susan Murphy called to clear that up, it unfortunately raised a flag. Our port of entry was actually Blaine, Washington but our first performance was in Los Angeles and usually their not, our first performances are usually sort of in Oklahoma so then you are assigned to a different immigration office but in this case it was Los Angeles so the California office was handling it, they had people from Washington since September 11th, they’ve sent out all these guns from Washington to oversee every single application so this application was lying very dormant and would have gotten reassigned when it was pulled up to be looked at again because of Puerto Rico was listed erroneously, that raised all these flags and hey denied are Visas. They were pulling it within weeks, two weeks from when we were supposed to enter the United States.
Anyway it all was resolved but not quickly, like it took a week. Our actors had to down the US consulate and identify themselves in person something that never has ever been done before. So that’s definitely the reality has changed and sort of the feeling we’re having is that they are going to make it more and more and more difficult which is not good news for everybody in the room not even for someone like Green Thumb with a reputation like the relationship that we’ve had with the US Immigration for twenty years, even that’s in doubt and jeopardy. California was calling Vermont, which is the one that’s most familiar with us and they had actually sort of people personally putting their job on the line basically vouching for us that we weren’t terrorists and just really but you have to kind of understand the position that they’re in. Their whole world has been turned upside down but it doesn’t seem very rational that they’re preventing artists from going in based on their efforts to try to prevent terrorists that are infiltrating the country. But anyway, so if you are planning to tour to the U.S., you might give Susan Murphy, our Tour Director, she does have a lot of experience with that and she does get calls. I mean she doesn’t want to be inundated but she does get calls and if you’re really running against a brick wall and you don’t know where to turn, she is a good source of…even some anecdotal advice or point you in the right direction where you might get the information from. But then okay, that’s sort of the Visa thing and the other thing I would mention, it wasn’t a Visa it’s actually a work permit, and the other thing is that we did run into…because of the economic downturn in the United States since September 11, we also have run into some cancelled shows but not a whole booking cancellation but booking in a certain city of say three shows and they also wanted to go to two and asking us to, it sort of was a “force majeure”, that it was an Act of God and we’re thinking “well no it wasn’t” and there’s been a few times where we’ve had to say to the presenters “this is the fee we negotiated with you and we’re very sorry that you can’t, that schools are not buying now but it’s not our fault. You know these are people with presented with for many years and love our work and it’s not anything to do with the quality of work, it’s simply that schools are more cautious on what the money they’re spending to send their kids to the theatre so then all of a sudden, a presenter who could always guaranteed you could always get three shows sold or give or whatever, all of sudden are saying “well maybe two shows” which is 75% of what they normally do so, that’s something that everyone will face for the next couple of years in the U.S. market and it’s much the same as what you are saying in Kitimat. It’s not that they don’t like the artists or the work or that they you know they don’t believe in exposing their children to culture, it’s just that they just can’t swing it.
Comment: Ian Forsyth (Shadbolt Centre for the Arts): Just another post 9/11 wrinkle I guess. We’re just now contracting the artists for the Burnaby Blues Festival and some of them are from the States and some of them have criminal records being blues musicians.
Comment: Hey!
Ian: Well they do, particularly the headliner! We’ll probably sell lots of tickets and we are really nervous that of course the night before, they’re coming down the Friday, the Blues Festival is on Saturday, they just wouldn’t be allowed in the country. So through a lot of effort we actually have it in the contract now that it’s not an acceptable cancellation if he’s denied entry into Canada and I don’t know how in the case of Green Thumb where they’re all fresh faced young kids and they were almost denied entry going in and the same way coming up so, there’s a real concern that you know at that time frame we’re bringing in artists for this specific event and there is no time. If he can’t get in, a $200,000 event is effectively cancelled if our headliner is stopped at the border so we had to make sure in the contract, we were dealing with an agency in Atlanta who wasn’t quite sure where Canada was but thought it was North of Los Angeles and again answered all the questions. Again there was no information, there was no realization of the foreign country aspect even the border aspect was a surprise: why does it have to be in the contract? So it seemed to be a real learning experience considering they program across the country as well. But we finally got it in and it won’t save the event but at least it won’t leave us on the hook for the artist fee, which we were still going to be responsible for if he couldn’t come into the country.
Comment: Doug Moore (Prince Rupert Concert Society): Just to know because I’ve had a fair bit of experience in this whole thing. I’m Doug Moore from Prince Rupert but I’m not speaking with my arts hat on, I’m speaking in my role as owning a deep sea ships agency and dealing with the Coast Wise Tug and Barging, I’m well aware of the insanity that’s going on both sides of the border. Depending on what the criminal nature, what the nature of the criminality is, there are steps that the person can take to be considered a “good boy” again. Now are these people being made aware of that and the hoops they have to step through to do that?
Ian: It’s a Ministerial report/letter, there’s some sort of dispensation they get from the Minister of Immigration that says they have served their time, paid their debt to American Society. Yeah!
Doug: He may… I don’t want to take up time but it may…the person would be well advised to have complete documentation in the court whatever the order was from the judge and then a further order saying he served his time…all of that stuff, they need to have all of that in hand. We’ve had things, just to show the craziness of what’s going on. My whole take on it is at the moment the law and order types are in charge and the liberal types are bending over backwards thinking that they’ve done wrong all these years but anyway I have had crew members including one instance where a Tug Captain who had been into the country more than 200 times over a number of years being refused entry because he had as ridiculous a thing as a 31year old drunk bicycling charge. I mean it’s just insane and I finally had to go a political route here in December writing letters to various federal ministers and it was amazing how quickly Immigration suddenly became available to us to deal with some of this insanity but it’s continuing and it’s going to continue for some time so anyway…
Sheryl: That’s a really good point for both the presenter to know about and also the artists if you are planning to tour. Rachel
Comment: Rachel Rocco (Festival Distribution): I just had a point that I’d been trying to get musicians in the states at various times for performances and I’ve also made the big mistake at using the U.S. Immigration web site and gone through all hoops and been led completely in the wrong direction. So now I use the Musician’s Union – it’s totally helpful and does that all the time. In Toronto, the woman, I think the woman’s name is Corrine and she does all those and she’s fantastic and then if you are going for the “O”, the “O” classification, the New York Office does that so…I like those people to do it rather than me doing it.
Sheryl: What’s the “O” classification?
Rachel: It’s if you’re an extraordinary…it’s if you are just getting…it’s an extraordinary, somebody else might know better than me, if you are an extraordinary person rather than a musician, who they could just get anywhere. So if you won awards or if you…you have back it up with written…you know, I don’t know…
Comment: A regular artist will tour with a “P” Visa, in and out of the states like Pavarotti or the big headline artists will go on “O” Visas.
Rachel: Other artists can get “O” Visas it’s just with a lot of documentation that you can so it’s not out of the question that an artist who’s not famous like that can get a an “O” because artists who tour in the folk realm are certainly not really well know get “Os” at times so… Juno Awards, recommendations, you know that kind of stuff.
Comment: No one locally is doing the same thing that you can get that. So you don’t have to be a big name, a specialty act for instance which I think is more of what would get the “O”.
Sheryl: Good information about the U.S. I just wanted to touch on another topic one being about Pacific Contact it self and you know what you find really useful and if there’s any ideas out there on what could be done here in the future or how you find the Contact Room, that sort of thing. Its always evolving, Pacific Contact. Year to year things do sort of change and we find out what’s really useful and what could we do next year that would be an added bonus. What we have done the last couple of years, we did the block booking meeting on Sunday morning but we’re not doing that this year but it is something that probably after Pacific Contact, if people send in their stuff, we could put in on an excel spreadsheet and post that information. Does anybody want to talk about Pacific Contact? What you find really useful? What we could do? I know I’ve heard people say that they used to get a sheet in their package that had an interest, the presenter, what they’re interested in booking. I saw many of them in the garbage but I also heard people say, “that was so useful for us to have”, so that’s something that we have, we’ve made note already to this point. Does anybody want to talk about Contact? Nobody? I guess you are having a great time.
Doug Moore (Prince Rupert Concert Society): I have an interesting…not about Contact but an interesting experience this past season. The first time this ever happened where we were and I’ll leave the names out of the story but we were asked by an agent to quickly put in place a stop payment on a cheque that was issued for the performance fee because and individual was with the company, there had been some kind of a messy separation and this individual absconded with stuff and from a previous and from a previous banking career had figured out a way to cash cheques that wasn’t entitled to do so and eventually we got the go ahead to reissue the cheque and send it away but I thought…I don’t know if anybody else has had that experience.
Sheryl: Now that’s a difficult one because when the artist/agent relationship breaks down, the presenter does sometimes get caught in the middle of it and it really is on a situation basis where the presenter has to find out: what do you do and you probably just talked to both the artist and agent, am I not correct?
Doug: We were kind of in the middle. It wasn’t really my problem but I was the one being called upon to resolve this issue for them.
Sheryl: That’s right and I think it’s probably on a situation –to-situation basis that you have to sort of figure out what is the best solution here. I don’t know what to offer.
Comment: I can’t imagine anyone is getting rich off of artists.
Sheryl: Sorry Wilson you had your hand up there.
Wilson Durward (Evergreen Cultural Centre): I was just saying about Pacific Contact something has occurred. Yesterday there’s a group, sort of an adhoc group that suddenly discovered that they were all interested in that one artist and just from word of mouth and talking to your colleagues and we go to the agent and they’re interested in doing that and we’re interested in doing that as well so those kinds of things do happen and I’m encouraging people to talk to fellow presenters and talk to agents and see. We have to be very creative these days because the money is…the money is not coming like it used to though so, I would encourage you to do that.
Joanna Maratta (BC Touring Council): Sheryl in regards to that, I’m wondering if there is a need to set some time or even a room aside for that tomorrow, would that be useful for us to find a little time between say now and sort of dinner?
Sheryl: I see heads going “yes”. I think yeah, we used to do regional meetings quite a few years ago but they started becoming smaller and smaller and so we stopped doing them but if it’s something that people really want and to encourage you to work with others in your region. Not only that but also in the province, the artists can then find out, you know, exactly what regions there are and who in the regions are booking and that sort of thing so, it is something that is useful.
Comment: Robert Pamplin (Mission Concert & Recital Society): Yes this is the first time I’ve been. When do you set the dates for Pacific Contact? I’m interested in this because I found it was a little late for me this year actually. I arrived back from England yesterday because I had already made a flight booking and I don’t know when you actually set the dates.
Sheryl: We usually set them at least a year ahead of time. Yes and it has to be in April and we usually do it at the beginning of April because of the booking cycles of the presenters. One year we had it in May and it was just way too late for people to go back to their communities. They have to…many of the presenters meet with committees and they have to make decisions with a committee and it was just very late for them so, we usually do it the first week of April.
Robert: Is that for next year?
Sheryl: It will be again in April. I’m not sure of the exact dates off the top of my head.
Robert: I’ll tell you because we’ve always been members. I’ve taken over for our daughter…the previous and I had no dates at all to work with.
Sheryl: For next year?
Robert: No, this year!
Sheryl: Oh we’ve had our dates for this year for over a year and a half.
Bronwen: I think they were posted on the web site.
Sheryl: Yeah they were on the web site.
Laurie Peerenboom (Victoria Conservatory of Music): And I don’t know how many of you realize we have a, for the last few years, an 800-seat concert hall called the Alix Goolden Hall and we’ve long mainly served our own stakeholders, faculty and students over the past few years but we also rent to the community and just this past year we started opening up to international touring artists and had a great number of wonderful classical performers in the venue. I wonder if anyone artists or presenters have tips for how we can make that a more pleasant experience, what services we could provide to those touring artists to make it a better experience for them to come to our facility.
Daniel Dolan (Green Thumb Theatre): Are you presenting touring artists or are you…?
Laurie: We are presenting a number of them and the other ones are rentals.
Sheryl: Wendy might know from the Chan Centre.
Wendy (Chan Centre for the Performing Arts): We have somebody who produces our series when we’re presenting so it’s not done by the staff, in-house but I don’t know if we do anything unusual. We offer…she’ll book their hotels, when they have riders you know, so they have food. There’s somebody to greet them. We’ll pick them up if they want to be picked up at the airport or arrange transportation. It is a big part of something we talk about in the office because when we book outside of our series, there isn’t anybody designated and it is important to have someone greet them making sure they feel welcome when they arrive for their rehearsal, someone who is there to make them feel at home, if they need anything, that kind of stuff. I mean we can talk about it a little more but I don’t know if we do anything.
Daniel Dolan (Green Thumb Theatre): I’ll just say quickly having been a stage manager and touring seven times through the U.S., the actors really appreciate having somebody meet them and some simple goodie basket. It doesn’t have to be through the roof but just something. A human presence and some kind of acknowledgement, like some kind of gift of something or even coffee and juice laid out, something. The worst and it happens probably about 50% of the time where no one from the arts organization meets us at all, ever, the entire maybe week that we’re there. They know they may have seen the show. They may phone back to the office and talk to Susan and say we liked it but they never come and meet the artists and there is nothing done in anyway special, even the simplest thing and when you’re away from home especially on a long tour, you really appreciate even bottled water, just the simplest things so, I’d really say that that uh… I don’t know if it would necessarily make a difference on the quality of the show you’re going to get but that probably couldn’t hurt - it can be cheap, just a gesture and then the human presence especially.
Wendy: If they don’t give us a hospitality rider, we do provide a minimum sort of thing just to make them feel welcome when they first arrive.
Sheryl: We’re at 11:30 and because we only have an hour for lunch I’m going to have to wrap up but does anybody have any final comments?
Annette (Canada Council): I just wanted to remind any artists in the room that the Canada Council does have touring grants available. I deal specifically with music. Generally we look for cross borders into different provinces but if you are up to 800 kilometers away from your residence, you can still apply if you’re still in BC so that’s something to look into.
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