Where You Place Your Butt Is Important Too

by:

Joe Patti

An article in the September/October issue of APAP‘s Inside Arts caught my eye (alas, the article is one of the few not available online) because it began with those immortal words–Butts In Seats.

The article wasn’t about getting butts in the seats, but rather the seats in which the butts would be placed. While seating is an area that faces cost cutting when renovations or construction goes over budget, there is still plenty of demand for added accoutrement.

Among the options for seating these days are built in headphones and speakers, lumbar support, infrared data transmission capabilities. The only thing the top and bottom of the line seats have in common are that they are ADA accessibility compliant and are generally larger than previous versions given that members of the public are also generally larger than previous versions.

I was somewhat intrigued by the possibilities these options would offer a venue. Obviously, one would want to limit the internet access the dataports had during a concert so that people weren’t using laptops, PDAs, etc to surf or watch movies during a concert.

But if you were looking to feed information to audience members a la Concert Companion this type of seat might facilitate such a program. If the facility would be used for conferences groups might use the dataports to beam sales figures and other information to attendees.

Built in headphones could support everything from helping those hard of hearing to carrying audio descriptions for the sight impaired to audio commentary on an orchestra piece. (On channel 2, Michael Tilson Thomas discusses the influences on this piece.)

Of course, after I get over being intrigued, I think about the upkeep and support costs of the computer server for the dataports, the perils of food and liquids falling into data and headphone ports and the normal wear and tear on you have on seating. Any place with enough seating to generate income to cover this sort of stuff will have enough work to keep at least one guy busy fixing the seats year round.

The one thing I wish the article discussed a little more was the way seating contributed to a planned mood for a space. The project manager at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center was briefly quoted discussing how he chose seating with “pew-like back trim…designed ‘to increase the sense of a collective experience.”

I took a look at the image of the space and it appears that each person has an individual seat (unlike pews which are much more communal.) When I think of pews, I think of straight backed wooden, uncomfortable seatings. It is hard to see the seats up close, but from the coloration the seatbacks could be wood. (By the same standard, the seats look wooden as well. I can’t imagine that they aren’t cushioned though.)

While I can see where the space would lend itself to an ambiance of collective experience, I would attribute it more to the openness of the performance space than the seating.

Most new theatres promote how plush and comfortable audiences will find their seats. Since it tough to determine if these seats are cozy, I don’t know if the project manager, faced with a tight seating budget, was simply rationalizing why a stark, pew like seating arrangement was a good choice in the face of thrift.

I am sure there were inexpensive traditional looking cushioned seats since that is what audiences expect. So I go back to my earlier wish to have gotten a little more information on seat design theory.

But you know, I am kinda a geek so it may just be me.

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Author
Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice.

I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group (details).

My most recent role is as Theater Manager at the Rialto in Loveland, CO.

Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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