Held open
Which hours do we refuse to sell, what does each refusal cost, and is the reason still true?
Hours never for sale
104 h
of 630 hours in the building — 17% of the week, under 4 standing rules
At list price
$3,120
against $7,414 actually taken — an overstatement, deliberately, because an hour at list is not an hour that would have sold
Read it as the most this could be costing, not as lost income.
Largest single rule
Sunday before five
60 hours, $1,840 at list — more than the other 3 rules together
And the one nobody has argued about in two years, which is why it is printed first.
What a hold has to have
- 1A reason a person can say out loud to a band who wants the room.
- 2A cost, priced at list, printed next to it. A refusal with no number attached stops being a decision and becomes a habit.
- 3A review date. All four of these are re-read every term, and the Sunday one has survived every review since 2021.
- 4A name. Somebody decided each of these and can be asked why.
Nothing here is enforced by the booking system, which will happily let a Sunday morning be booked. It is enforced by the four people who answer the phone, which is a weaker control and an honest one.
Why this is not folded into occupancy
Because it would disappear. A hundred and four hours inside the denominator is eight points of occupancy — forty-nine becomes forty-one — and eight points reads as a sales problem. The fix for a sales problem is to sell more, which here means selling a Sunday morning and losing the licence.
On its own screen with a price on it, the same hundred hours are a bill the building has chosen to pay, and any of us can argue that it is too expensive. That is a conversation worth being able to have.
Four standing rules · most hours first
Sunday before five
60 h a week · $1,840 at list
A written agreement with the two houses backing onto the load-in door, made in 2021 after a complaint that would otherwise have cost the licence. It is not a preference and it does not get sold at any price.
- R1 · Sun 10–17
- R1 · Sun 22–01
- R2 · Sun 10–17
- R2 · Sun 22–01
- R3 · Sun 10–17
- R3 · Sun 22–01
- R4 · Sun 10–17
- R4 · Sun 22–01
- R5 · Sun 10–17
- R5 · Sun 22–01
- R6 · Sun 10–17
- R6 · Sun 22–01
Room 4, whenever Room 3 is tracking
31 h a week · $682 at list
Room 4 shares a wall with the booth. Selling it during a session means either a ruined take or a refunded rehearsal, and we have done both.
- R4 · Tue 10–17
- R4 · Tue 17–22
- R4 · Thu 10–17
- R4 · Sat 10–17
- R4 · Sat 17–22
Monday day, Room 3
7 h a week · $406 at list
The week's line check and patching. Sold twice by mistake in June and both sessions started forty minutes late.
- R3 · Mon 10–17
Friday late, Rooms 1 and 2
6 h a week · $192 at list
Held for the term bands who run over on a Friday. They pay for it either way and it is the reason four of them have stayed three years — the hour is not the product, not being thrown out is.
- R1 · Fri 22–01
- R2 · Fri 22–01
The Room 4 rule has no fixed hours — it closes whatever Room 3 books, so it costs more in a good week than a bad one. That is the correct behaviour and it is also the reason it is worth watching: the better a week Room 3 has, the fewer hours Room 4 is allowed to sell, and neither room’s own figures say so.