Community Update – August 2022
Editorial
The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the author and don’t necessarily reflect those of Highwire Improv. We hope you enjoy reading!
Hello Highwire Community!
This month, in addition to our live community meetings, we’re trying a short and sweet blog update for folks who can’t make the live event or who don’t want to watch a longform video! This is just the key info – as always, comment or email us if you have questions!
COVID and Show Status
As of August 7th, Baltimore City remains in medium status according to the CDC Community Risk levels, with a slightly higher case load compared to July 2022. At this time, in-person events remain ON, and are recommended for vaccinated individuals only. Two key resources for anyone attending an event:
- Our regularly updated in-person event status, including local and national COVID data.
- Our venue guide, which includes information about the the location, physical space, and policies of our in-person venues.
Additionally, we have started tracking Monkeypox data in the same link above, though at this time have no further adjustments to our plans above and beyond those COVID-related procedures.
Programming and Space Updates
We closed out Season 7 with two awesome shows at The Lou Costello Room and Downsquares, along with another month of our open in-person jams and jamshops!
An Evening of Vintage Smut: On Stage!
In addition to returning to many of our venue from Seasons 4 and 7, we’ve got a special collaboration project at the Creative Alliance this season – bringing an improv spin to the wonderful An Evening of Vintage Smut’s first ever stage show!
Applied Improv
Over the past few months, we’ve continued to develop our applied improv practices:
- We’ve run 7 applied improv workshops online with a strong pipeline of new leads.
- We’ve recorded a series of applied improv exercises that we’ll look to add on our website and LinkedIn presence.
Performer Pay Transparency
During Season 7, we ran our in-person shows on a model of $30 / half hour for the troupe. This allowed us to ensure payment even if there were variable venue fees or ticket sales. We plan to continue this in Season 8. How do we know that’s the right move? We took a look at the numbers from Season 7:
- Income: $1,993.00
- Ticket sales: $1,896.00
- Merch sales: $85.00
- Donations: $12.00
- Expenses: $1601.75
- Venue fees: $755.80
- Performer fees: $750.00
- Platform fees: $95.95
- Highwire Net: $391.25
Finances and Growth
| Month | Income | Expenses | Net Income |
| June 2022 | $1,378.96 | $5,305.46 | -$3,926.50 |
| July 2022 | $3,951.87 | $2,401.74 | $1,550.13 |
As referenced last month, the bumpiness in finances continues, as we received payments for several applied improv classes.
| May | June | July | August | |
| Facebook Followers | 975 | 992 | 1,010 | 1,034 |
| Instagram Follows | 848 | 860 | 890 | 917 |
| YouTube views | 31,550 | 33,951 | 35,275 | 37,059 |
| Unique YouTube viewers | 1,400 | 1,400 | 2,700 | 3,900 |
| YouTube subscriptions | 598 | 610 | 620 | 632 |
| Workshops scheduled | 56 | 60 | 64 | 65 |
As we often say – the numbers are going up and to the right, with no major surprises.
