Sunday, February 6, 2011

Interval at the concert has more dramas than on stage

I attended a concert this afternoon. It was lovely. Great chamber ensemble, great bass baritone, interesting program of short works. Good concert companion. Check.
The bar at interval was insane. I sane as in 'insanely busy' but also just insane. For the rest of this post I am channeling my inner old trout, so please avert your eyes if you are easily distressed.
At a large concert You have hundreds of people needing a drink in just 20 minutes. The bars are stuck down the end of a corridor and not big enough - when the venue was built the gentleman of the party took refreshments out to his ladies. It was Bedlam.
The menu is limited but there are four varieties of wine plus beer and soft drink, ice-cream and chocolates. There are three (maybe four) staff in a very cramped space only one of whom is capable - or perhaps allowed? - to run the till. One chap required more than five minutes to fail to pour some bubbles. All drinks are poured on request rather than being pre-poured. Perhaps it theoretically saves on waste but not when offset against lost customer revenue. The coffee, at least has been brewed and is in those catering thermoset thingies. Few souls were so hardy or desperate.
The icecreams are in a fridge the servers cannot reach, and many patrons are confused to be told to go fetch their over-priced icecreams themselves. As this is the Sunday matinee, several patrons have limited mobility with which to do so (and they've yet to visit the facilities in the few minutes that remain of interval, so its a bit of a worry and this turns them Bolshie).
Surely the profits are greater the more items you sell? Especially at $9 for a very small plastic flute of vin ordinaire bubbly from chateau iffy. I would like to say the staff rose to the challenge with some show of resourcefulness or even forethought or willingness, but I'm afraid there was no evidence of this. Only the senior on the till attempted to get things moving, the others looked to be enduring the twenty minutes until it was over. With a total absence of work pride and an excess of helplessness, I image the time went even slower for them than it did for those of us stuck in the queue. I imagine they are all casuals and have no training. The venue is only used for concerts on occasion. But still... It didn't have to be like that. Talk about Moments of Truth!
This is post 26 of 43 posts.
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