The Front of House Manager plans to update the Front of House area for the upcoming musical 'Footloose' on a limited budget. This includes making new signs to replace existing ones, creating posters to advertise the show, and setting up a ticket system. Efforts will be made to enhance the space and create a more professional theater-like atmosphere through lighting, music, and table decorations while staying within budget.

1. *

2. *I have been allocated the role of the
Front of House Manager for
Footloose. I intend to liaise with my
team members, Jordan and Jordi
and discuss what we want the FoH
to look like. Then I will meet with
Sarah, Nancy and Abbie and share
our ideas with them.

3. *Something that will need to be taken into
consideration is the theme. I think the FoH
should look professional, like what a theatre
would normally have. In order to do this, we
could cover up the 'Priestley College' signs above
the doors to the auditorium and replace it with a
sign saying 'Entrance.'
*My team and I also came up with the idea to
cover the 'Reception' sign and replace it with 'Box
Office.' We knew the budget for FoH was low,
therefore we will have to come up with a way to
make the signs ourselves because getting them
done properly was too expensive and we only
have a week.

4. *I know that there is some black card
in the classroom so I will be able to
cut it to scale and print out white
letters to stick over the top. Cutting
the card perfectly will be a difficult
task, however we could use a jigsaw
to make the cutting process quicker.

5. *When the card has been made to the
correct size, firstly we will test it to ensure
it fit properly, if so we can begin to print
out letters for the writing. I will print off
each individual letter that we need and
keep them all at the same size for
accuracy.
*Next I aim to cut them out and stick them
onto the piece of card, hopefully using PVA
glue.
*On the night, when the signs are put up,
we can attach them to the original sign
using folded gaffa tape as it is strong.

6. * Another element taken into
consideration was the posters outside the
hall. Before the show, pictures of
performing arts / dancers were in the
frames. So we decided to change them to
Footloose related posters.
*We decided as a team what should be
written / put inside the frame and we
concluded that there should be two
'Tonights Showing - Footloose' signs
(keeping with the professional box office
theme), one 'Footloose' logo and three of
the Footloose protest signs, such as 'Let
us Dance' and 'Dancing is Not a Crime'.

7. *I have contacted 2 different printing
stores in Warrington to get a quote as
for how much the posters would be to
print professionally. However both
were similar in price - approximately
£120, which we could not afford and as
college could not print posters at the
size we needed, we had no option but
to make them ourselves.
*This will not be too much trouble
because they are relatively simplistic
and there are 3 of us - therefore we
can get them finished quicker.

8. *For the protest signs, we will simply
paint white card (which luckily fits the
frames perfectly) red and write over in
black paint. The idea is to make them
look like they have been handmade so
making them neat is not a big deal.
*For the 'Tonight's Showing', we have
designed a poster with a stylish black
font for the title, time and warning
underneath.

9. *The warning includes information about
the use of flashing lights and the haze
machine used in the performance and also
the case of allergies due to the hay.
We also copy and pasted the Footloose
logo for the middle of the poster and
'queue here' with arrows in the direction of
where we want people to wait.
*We will print the posters on A3 paper in
the media suite and stick it down onto
black card using PVA glue.
*We could use the same approach for the
Footloose logo.

10. *At the first meeting, the three of us also
considered how the ticket system would work
and we decided to use the podium we have at
college. I wanted the tickets to be checked at
the desk when the audience enter the building,
then ripped at the door as they enter the
theatre (at the podium)
*I gave Jordi this role whilst Jordan and I will be
behind the desk selling drinks and programmes
and checking tickets / giving out those that have
been reserved. If tickets have been reserved,
I would like to make FoH more efficient by
collecting reserved tickets from the performers
/ staff before the Box Office opens. This way
there will be no running back and forth to the
dressing room on the night.
*I will print out a list of the names of the
performers who had reserved tickets, so there
will be no confusion when their families/friends
arrived to collect their tickets.

11. *As for refreshments and programmes,
we have liaised with the Performing
Arts teachers about the prices and were
told to sell programmes for £1 as they
were only small and refreshments also
for a pound.
*As there was a bar in the theatre, it
was decided that drinks would be
served from there. However must be
purchased from the box office upon
entry - we will make this clear when
the audience arrive.

12. *We will put a sticker on their
programme (red for alcoholic beverage,
green for a non-alcoholic beverage) and
this way the waitresses in the theatre
will be able to determine which drinks
are allowed to be served and to who.
*The only alcohol that will be served is
beer as they would like to stick with
the American West theme when inside
the theatre.

13. *To promote the professional box office
theme, we can have classical/orchestral
music playing in the background, which I
will download onto my iPod and bring in to
connect to some speakers. We also had the
idea to separate the FoH
and the performers' entrance to stage right
by using blue flats.
*This is because we felt that not allowing
the audience the wander down to where
the performers were would be more
professional and keeping with the theme.
*We also would like to use 3 LED Parcans
and light them up the wall in a red, white
and blue order, again to stay with the
theme of Footloose/Box Office FoH.

14. *Sarah has asked me to design a
centrepiece for the 10 tables in the
theatre, to make them less dull. So I came
up with the idea of having a bouquet of
American flags and silver star table
confetti.
*At home I have blue and red balloon
weights which I thought would work quite
well because it is within the red white and
blue theme and they were perfect in size.
*To save money, I also thought about
making the flags myself, my printing out
American flags and sticking them to a
kebab stick (which are very cheap from
any shop.)