#rtr red deer

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How I wish, how I wish you were here.

[virtuemoirdailynews]

RTR 2019 - Red Deer - Masterpost from PLT

Opening number - Rolling Stones’ Medley 

Wish you were here 

Group Number - 20s Medley - Sway 

Group Number - Let You Go 

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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.😬

[bartowskis]

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. 

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

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I wanna keep you any way I can.

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ashli_28: A week later, and I'm finally posting a few pics from Rock the Rink tour's stop in Red Deer. I'm so grateful I was able to see Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue once more before they officially retired - and I'm not going to lie, I totally teared up during the video they showed regarding their retirement. They are magic on ice and I could watch them forever, but unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. A lot of little girls want to be princesses when they grow up, but when I was little, I wanted to be a figure skater/ice dancer. My parents couldn't afford to put me into skating lessons (or even dance lessons until I was in high school) so I always enjoy living vicariously through watching others, and there's no better pair than these two. #rocktherink #scottmoir #tessavirtue #icedance #icedancing #sportsphotography #reddeer #figureskating #scottandtessa #virtueandmoir

[indefinableship]

How I wish, how I wish you were here.

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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.”

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

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ashli_28: A week later, and I'm finally posting a few pics from Rock the Rink tour's stop in Red Deer. I'm so grateful I was able to see Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue once more before they officially retired - and I'm not going to lie, I totally teared up during the video they showed regarding their retirement. They are magic on ice and I could watch them forever, but unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. A lot of little girls want to be princesses when they grow up, but when I was little, I wanted to be a figure skater/ice dancer. My parents couldn't afford to put me into skating lessons (or even dance lessons until I was in high school) so I always enjoy living vicariously through watching others, and there's no better pair than these two. #rocktherink #scottmoir #tessavirtue #icedance #icedancing #sportsphotography #reddeer #figureskating #scottandtessa #virtueandmoir

[virtuemoirdailynews]

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Jeremy Abbott’s Instagram Story (October 10th 2019)

[indefinableship]

They belong in the spotlight.