Happy Day

Well things are going very well indeed. We took our new students to Felixstowe today. Practically no expense is spared at my place of employment. To liven up the day I decided to take The Phantom on the 28 mile round trip (after I had managed to lose my way twice). The Phantom is considerably lighter than Lucia but I think the students were quite impressed at the amount of sweat one man can produce. On the way back buoyed by adulation I decided to race a wiry young man on a sleek looking road bike. I have spent the last half hour lying on the bathroom floor. Now slightly recovered and listening to Beethoven's Ninth playing tinnily out of my laptop speakers I am reviewing my emails. I am delighted to report that the lovely people at Saison Video were not in search of another coaster but in fact watched my dvd and seem to want to show some of my work (though some of the Gallic reserve in Mo Gourmelon's emails is a little hard to decipher). Mo is a Directrice a position and word so exciting to me that I had to have another little lie down. More excitement was evinced upon my reading of a further email from Miss Vosvenieks the conference and events coordinator at The Bridgewater Hall, in Manchester, a fabulous venue which can hold up to 1800 people. She was extremely helpful with the costings thinking of a few things I had not considered. I quote her letter below with more than a twinge of guilt that she has become my unwitting accomplice:

Hi Alex
Thank you for your enquiry via Rooms for Meetings. We’d love to be able to confirm this event here at The Bridgewater Hall, particularly because we are an arts venue ourselves. Our main auditorium can hold up to 1800 guests on tiered seats across 4 levels, so it would be perfect for numbers around the 1000 mark.

We sell the auditorium as a whole facility hire which comes with our front of house foyers, our other conference rooms, 2 warm up rooms, 5 artists rooms (these are like dressing rooms) and 4 orchestra rooms (these can be used for holding spaces). I have attached our brochure which details the conference spaces and also have attached some photos of the auditorium for you, but if you would like to arrange a site visit please let me know.
Whole facility hire is charged at £12,180+vat for a 12 hour hire period between 07:00 – 23:00. This includes the above areas as well as 2 general purpose technicians, an appropriate level of stewards, in-house power, house lighting and general lighting to the stage. Additional technical costs are quoted dependent on your requirements, but for an idea of costs see below:

In-house PA system, sound desk & microphones @ £800+vat (this is a compulsory charge)
In-house lighting desk and the permanent lighting rig @ £300+vat
Follow spot @ £90+vat
Sound engineer @ £265+vat
Lighting engineer @ £265+vat
Follow spot operator @ £55+vat
Simple projection package (inc. screen and projector) @ £1500+vat

Catering costs as follows:
Tea, coffee & biscuits @ £2.40+vat per person, per serving
- we do have bars on all levels so could have account bar or cash bars open for you.

The dates we have available are:
Wednesday 7 September 2011
Wednesday 14 September 2011
Wednesday 28 September 2011

If you would like to provisionally hold one of these dates please let me know which date along with full contact details so I can hold it off in the diary for you.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you require anymore information.