Hosted my first out of town instructor two weeks ago and put on a showcase too. I’ve all the elements before separately, but never had to deal with a situation where I was also paying for flights, food, etc. I think overall the experience was great. Also made just a small amount of money for the studio. The workshop was all in all a great experience.
As for the showcase, these are the lessons I learned:
- Require a sound check prior to the show. And not just at the tech meeting a week prior, which we did have for our people that would be working backstage, since we arrived and found the sound board had been changed out in between the time of the tech meeting and one of the speakers was not functioning the day of show.
- Require a light check too. While we knew our only options for lights were on or off, for whatever reason some of the lights were not functioning and/or were not pointed correctly so most of the dancers were in the shadows.
- Lock the theater doors or have someone guard so that people cannot come in early and sit down. We had not planned to open doors until 7:30, but folks starting wandering in around 7:15 and I think this was half our problem because we lost our chance to let our tech folks do the necessary checks they wanted to do.
- Be clear with performers about stage usage prior to show as well as what is acceptable time to clear out from the venue because waiting around for 30 minutes post-show for dancers to collect their stuff and get moving was a bit tiresome. I had to wait until everyone cleared out so I could be sure the doors were locked and we had group dinner plans to get to. I rarely get to eat prior to a show, so I really wanted to get to the restaurant!