Making sure your seat is actually there

Things are pretty busy in the office at the moment. We've quite a few shows going on sale at the moment, including Jimmy Carr & Britain's Got Talent Winners Diversity. One of the great things about the Pavilion's Arena is that it is versatile: we can change the way that it is laid out significantly. We have over a dozen regular formats, plus we build bespoke ones for things such as snooker tournaments and fashion shows, not to mention all the corporate and business activity we undertake, which I'll talk about another time.

So for this reason, getting each show on sale can be a military operation. We have to ensure that every detail of how the arena will be laid out is sorted before the show goes on sale. Because once you've put seats available to buy, and someone buys them, you can't take them away again. Here's just one example. Each touring show usually brings in their own equipment. Things like the sound mixing desk. The best place to control sound effectively is somewhere in front of the speakers, to hear what the audience hears, and that often means it is right down in amongst the seating.

So we need to know where they want to put the mixing desk, so that we can clear some seats away to create a space. But how many? Is the mixer 5 or 7 feet wide? 2 or 3 feet deep? Those small changes can mean the difference of 6 seats.

For some shows, our Show Co-Ordinator works on this level of detail for 6 months before we get to a point where we can put it on sale. At othe times, where an artist is suddenly in the public eye, and the Promoters want to seize the moment, we have maybe 48 hours notice.