Position: Theater Manager, The Rialto Theater, Loveland, CO
Rich Harris has been managing the Rialto Theater just since November 2013, but he’s no newcomer to presenting. Over the past 30 years he’s worked at such venues as Town Hall Arts Center (Littleton), Dairy Center for the Arts (Boulder), Lone Tree Arts Center, and Swallow Hill, including 15 years at Teikyo Loretto Heights University in Denver. He also put in seven years as a booking agent.
What do you do as Theater Manager? I run the facility in all aspects, but with two major areas of focus. The Rialto is a wonderful resource for the community and many community groups come and rent the theatre for their productions. The majority of our business is rentals, but we do produce a fair number of shows ourselves. I’m in charge of selecting and booking those shows.
How many events do you book talent for annually? About 25. It depends on whether I want to do fewer acts with large talent fees or more acts--I will probably lean toward more rather than fewer because there are just so many good things to present. I also book for a summer outdoor series at Loveland’s Foote Lagoon--six concerts that are free to the public. We get an average attendance of 2000 people. Also, we have a small arts and education program that I am excited about developing.
How do you find local talent that fits your organization's needs? For me personally, I like to sit down with the Web. I have a long history booking the performing arts, and of course there are many artists looking for opportunities to perform; two-thirds of our phone calls are people calling me to offer acts. I’ll also be attending a couple of major booking conferences--APAP Arts Presenters Conference, New York, and the Western Arts Alliance on the West Coast.
I’ll certainly be at the Colorado Performing Arts Jamboree this January, which I’ve attended a half dozen times or more. All those people are potential acts. Many of them have played at the Rialto and almost all of them offer arts and education programming. I try to stop by every booth and see what they have to offer.
What is your greatest challenge as a booker? Finding the right act for the situation and then making a deal that is fair to everybody, that everybody feels good about when it’s over. People have their egos and their livelihood and their artistic lives--you can’t always equate that to dollars. I respect the artist immensely and don’t always have the dollars to make it work financially. It’s one big balancing act. But it’s wonderful experience when you get the right artist in front of the right audience.
What is a local act that you worked with recently that was especially successful, and why was it a success? Hazel Miller. She is just a dream to work with. It is wonderful to present her act and music in the best light in a nice theater with professional production staff. I feel really motivated to get her the biggest audience.
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