I am still working on developing my Talking to Strangers idea. Unexpectedly, the biggest hurdle right now is finding a mechanism that is easy to attach and detach from theater seats (but stays put) that has an unobtrusive profile so people can move past in the row. I think I am getting close to a solution. Those of you who said you had question ideas for me, you know who you are! Send them in!.
On a related note, you may have heard that there was a production of Once in Toronto that was far more ambitious than I am when it comes to bringing people together. Back in June, they held what they termed the world’s biggest blind date. They ended up having 5000 people apply to be one of 1200 singles who would be paired up at a performance.
Arts events are often touted as being a good date night, but the folks in Toronto weren’t gonna wait for someone to get asked out.
Part of the application process was filling out a questionnaire that enabled a computer program to match you with someone else in the audience. When you arrived, you got the name of your blind date and a corresponding ticket. Intermission was extended 10 minutes to allow people to become better acquainted.
This type of thing is a fun idea even if you have to do it on a smaller scale. Even if people don’t end up falling in love, (or if the goal of your program wasn’t focused on love), those who meet might become good friends and continue to attend events together.
I have to confess, my initial thought was that this was an attempt to draw a younger audience. If you watch the video associated with the article, you will see that participants ranged across many demographics, including age.
Holding such an event allows you to partner with area restaurants and other businesses. Even if, for whatever reason, you can’t work directly with specific restaurants, just being able to say that the uncharacteristically large number of people who filled their tables on an off-night was due to your program, emphasizes your value in the community. (Actually, they will love you more if you alert them in advance to the possibility of a large crowd on an off night.)
Romance, or the possibility of it, lends itself well to a wide variety of partnerships with local businesses.
I think Toronto was smart to hold their event in June. Being so far from the Christmas holidays and Valentine’s Day keeps the stakes low and allows participants to be relatively carefree about the romantic possibilities. If there isn’t even a platonic affinity between two people, it isn’t such a big deal.
So you may want to carefully consider if a blind date program at Fiddler on the Roof might be WAY too much pressure.
It occurs to me that someone hosting this would want to hold it at an event with anticipated low attendance. Not that you would necessarily want to this program to prop up an unpopular show, but if you are going to be matching people up you will want to set tickets at a uniform price. You don’t want the headache of trying to match up people with common interests who also both happened to buy $80 seats.
Since you will have to block off a section of your seating, you don’t want demand to end up being so high that you ultimately regret the fact you could have sold that block of 100 seats for $20 more each. But you also don’t want to set the price so high that people feel like they should be enjoying the interactions with their blind date a lot more than they are.
This said, if you turned it into an annual event held in conjunction with a show of respectable quality, the reputation for having a fun vibe can almost carry the event by itself while potentially seeding better attendance at other events.