#rtr red deer

[indefinableship]

How I wish, how I wish you were here.

[wntw-virtuemoir-edition]

Betty does RTR ticket math 🧮 RED DEER FINAL

I wish I had better news.

Just 1931 tickets sold out of approximately 6000 (venue says 7111 but small section blocked so I rounded down).

That’s 32% sold.

94 ice seats still available at time of counting if anyone is close by and bored on a Thursday night.😬

[guildfordd]

right here, right now’s all we got

[purple-jupiter-ascending]

[saucylittlesmile]

Tickets are now available for Battle of the Blades!  The show is going to be taped live in several GTA locations (unlike previous years where it was only in Toronto).  Here is a list of the dates/times/locations of the show, always on Thursdays, and links to buy tickets.  Tickets are very inexpensive and many of these arenas have plenty of good seating.

Now, this is good news and worthy of it’s own post.  But... hey, I’m a VM blog, so let’s do some guesswork?

The following is BotB dates, followed by RTR overlap and/or likelihood of VM being able to guest judge at that particular date.

Thursday, September 19 (special two-hour premiere) - Hamilton

no RTR overlap - VM could judge

Thursday, September 26 - Hamilton

no RTR overlap - VM could judge

Thursday, October 3 - Hamilton

no RTR overlap - less likely to judge as RTR starts on the West Coast on October 5

Thursday, October 10 - Mississauga

RTR show - Red Deer, Alberta - no possible VM judging

Thursday, October 17 - Oshawa

RTR show - Lethbridge, Saskatchewan - no possible VM judging

Thursday, October 24 - Oshawa

no RTR overlap - less likely to judge as RTR show in Winnipeg on October 25, but still possible (they also have a block of days off from RTR prior to BotB)

Thursday, October 31 - Toronto 

no RTR overlap - also, Hallowe’en! - judging possible as they are in the area with RTR London on October 30, but need to be at RTR Sudbury for November 1st  (could the cast of RTR show up at this finale and then hit the road overnight?  anything is possible!)

Whether or not VM are guest judges, I expect it would be fun to attend a taping of BotB if you’re able.  :)

[firstofall-howdareyou]

Anonymous asks: what’s your honest opinion about the lack of promotion for rtr even though ticket sales are everything but great? 

okay let’s start by getting a few things out of the way: 

1. any “lack of promotion” rests on the shoulders of Round Room Live. I realize this is VM’s tour and it’s a presidental “the buck stops here” mindset, but they’re involved in a lot of aspects of the show, plus they’re the primary performers, so for these reasons - we don’t place this ~blame on VM. Hard stop. 

2. the promotion levels are fairly even with where we were last year. the show was announced, they had a media day on like July 9th (in the same space they had this media day on August... 12th?) and then we didn’t really hear about it again mid-September when they started rehearsing. Then we had a media day at the rink, video from On Ice Perspectives, photos from Danielle, etc etc. In fact - as much as I don’t like the sterileness of their social media, it feels like RTR is posting more this year than TTYCT did this time last year. 

3. I’ve said publicly and privately that I thought they should do another media day in mid-to-late September. Idk if they will or not, but I want them to do more press closer to the start of the show where they can talk a little more specifics. 

Anonymous asks: sorry, but you can't remotely compare this years sales figures to last years. you might promote for an entirely different sort of event. there is no way that sales are gonna kick in THAT much last minute for these shows. the sales are dreadful. it just shows you how much of last years audiences WERE made up of the fanbase, who bought their tickets early, and which has dwindled to almost nothing now. it's not made up of random residents of red deer spending their days wage on an ice show. 

okay boo boo, let’s chat. 

1. climb out of your head and realize that they had roughly 145,000 people attend their shows last year. This fandom is about 1200 max. So where did the other 143,000 people come from? 

2. their audience is primarily families, kids, and older women. All figure skating is that audience. This fandom is a weird anomaly. So no. The audience wasn’t their “fanbase” in the manner that you’re thinking and especially not their “fanbase” that would be turned off by ~partnership drama~ or engagements. 

3. wow wow wow how insulting to the people of red deer. I bet you didn’t expect me to go to the Canadian census, did you? The median income for a single person in Red Deer, Alberta is $40,754. Which means the median value of their work day is $156.75. Tickets for Red Deer’s show are as cheap as $48.50. Would it be a treat? Sure. Would they starve because they’re some podunk town in the backwoods? No. 

Targeted promotion works. Do i think they’re doing that in these towns yet? No. Would I like them to? Yes. 

But boiling this down to saying the audiences were only made up of the fanbase, and especially saying it was made up of a fanbase that disappeared over Scott’s engagement is so wildly incorrect. 

Anonymous asks: yeah I get what you’re saying but this year the ticket sales are honestly disastrous... I don’t know how they’re gonna change that

Ummmm with marketing. With advertising. How do you think people change that?? But guess what! “They” in this sentence falls on the tour/production team they hired. Maybe lets let Tessa and Scott do their damn job and manage their vendors to increase sales instead of blaming everything on VM and calling them failures? Cool? 

Anonymous asks: As a pr person, a month before tour, what would you expect ticket sales to be? What percentage sold would be a good benchmark at this point? 

I can only talk in what I know and I’ve never done a tour before. But in terms of event sales? I wouldn’t be super stressed to have less than 30-40% sold. Unless you’re like ... Beyonce or something exclusive, last minute ticket sales don’t surprise me. That big fundraising event that I mentioned in that post from last year? We’ve sold 200+ seats in the past two weeks despite tickets having been on sale since June 1st. In fact, we didn’t break 10 tickets sold for over a month. But I knew ticket sales would roll in as we did more promotion, got more posts on social media, released the press release, etc. 

tl:dr stop blaming tessa and scott and stop freaking out about ticket sales and calling this tour a disaster. 

[indefinableship]

“This is not goodbye, for we will always and forever wish you were here.” (x)

[indefinableship]

I wanna keep you any way I can.

[indefinableship]

How I wish, how I wish you were here.

[indefinableship]

Still working on her ability to tell jokes, together.

--

“That would’ve been more impressive if you were like, ‘It feels good to be here in Red Deer. Hope everyone’s got a beer!’ You know, something like that.”

“I’ll work on that.”

[indefinableship]

One minute they’re sitting down, chatting, the next minute...

[indefinableship]

They belong in the spotlight.

[indefinableship]

RTR Red Deer - Sway

[indefinableship]

RTR Red Deer

So, I went to the Red Deer show last night. Below is a writeup of the whole experience. Feel free to skip it as it’s not going to be short or picture-filled, but I’m writing this for my sake, not that I’d forget about it any time soon.

I didn’t take many pictures as I mainly filmed bits of the show. But I quite like this one. (I’ll put the rest of my rambling under the cut.)

About two months ago, in a moment of weakness (I was probably struggling to finish a paper or something), I considered the idea of flying to Canada specifically to see Tessa and Scott on tour. So I started looking at possible dates and made some preliminary arrangements. Then I messaged my best friend saying that I was thinking about going to see a show far far away in October even though I wasn’t sure if I’d have time to do so. He simply replied: "Clear your schedule then!” (That’s what best friends are for, right?) My schedule wasn’t entirely cleared, but I’m here anyway. And I’m glad I did.

Having watched some videos taken by fans who went to previous shows, I kind of knew what to expect of the show before hand. Of course I was there mostly for Tessa and Scott, but the other skaters were fantastic to watch as well. I was at the TYCT Moncton last year, so I knew the crowd would LOVE Elvis and Patrick. Kaetlyn was charismatic and loved by the crowd too. She fell a couple of times, once actually slipping off the ice, but she got right back up and finished the rest of her performance like a champ, with a dazzling smile. Although the crowd didn’t know the non-Canadian skaters as well, I think people fell in love with them as the show progressed. It was so fun watching Jeremy skate, and his back flips always drove the audience wild. Tati and Max won people’s hearts with their beautiful lifts and skills. Carolina really stood out in the 20′s Medley program, but I loved her individual program more. Wish I had filmed it too.

Now, as for Tessa and Scott, I feel like I can never sing enough praise for them. As much as I tried to capture them on film, nothing really beats seeing them skate live. They brought the fire right in the opening with the bit from their Latin Rock SD, leaving me wanting more. How I wish I could have seen the entire program live. After the opening, Tessa and Scott came out again to introduce Jeremy. As they were leaving the rink and hugging Jeremy, he took a big longer hugging Tessa, and I think I actually saw Scott holding his arm out and saying “easy there!”. I guess at this point this “hands off my partner” bit is more of a long-running gag than actual annoyance, but I love it nevertheless. Right, back to the programs. Tessa and Scott really belong in the spotlight, and they always shone brighter than the other skaters, to me at least. Their smiles and enthusiasm are contagious and I can’t help but smile myself during all the fun group numbers. Wish You Were Here was beautifully skated, no surprise there. There were some elements from their old programs, but the entire program felt fresh nonetheless. The way they brought the choreography onto the ice was just... I’m running out of words to describe how breathtakingly ethereal they looked, in addition to being in sync and connected as they always do.

At the end of the night, as the lights dimmed for THE video, I thought I was ready for the emotions since I had already watched the clips posted by other fans. But I was wrong. Nothing could prepare me for seeing them on the jumbotrons with my own eyes, talking about their journey, their partnership, and also thinking about what they were not saying out loud because their relationship was special and unique that it defies explanation to outsiders. Then came Fix You. I tried to not be sad and remind myself of what Tessa said that this marks a new beginning. Still, watching the Mahler ending feels like someone ripped a piece of my heart out. (It felt almost as painful as I later found out that I did not really film Fix You... :’( )

One of the most memorable parts of last night was the performance by the SO athlete Meg (described by Scott as “by far one of the biggest sweethearts” he’s ever met in his life) and the reaction from the cast and the crowd. People were really supportive and encouraging, and she got one of the biggest rounds of applause last night as well as a standing ovation. It really warmed my heart. It’s beyond lovely that the SO athletes were given these opportunities.

After the show ended last night, as people walked out of the arena, I saw a couple of kids dancing and twirling around as if they were jumping on the ice. I guess that’s a big part of the reason why Tessa and Scott did this tour, so that many people would leave the show feeling inspired.

The last twenty months of being their fan has been a fun and wild ride. I’ve spent way more time (and money, lbh) on them than I’d expected when I clicked on their Moulin Rouge performance for the first time. I don’t really interact with others in the fandom much, but being here and loving these two together with all of you has become an important part of my life. It’s been wonderful sharing this love I have with all of you. And thank you if you have ever liked, reblogged, or messaged me about my posts. You’ve all helped make adulting, and life in general, much more tolerable. So, lots of love to you! :)

[indefinableship]

We're just two lost souls Swimming in a fish bowl Year after year

[indefinableship]

With her strength and his support, she flies.