USA: Broadway strike costs local businesses big money

In the United States, the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend is usually the busiest for Broadway. With the stagehands strike in its second week, businesses around the theatres are losing big money, and if the strike continues into the December holidays, some companies say they could go out of business. The long Thanksgiving holiday weekend is usually one of the busiest times of the year for Broadway theatres and for the businesses that rely on the crowds generated by the shows. But on Tuesday (November 20), with the stagehands' union on strike for its second week, business owners in the city's Theatre District said they sobering up to the idea that if the strike does not end soon, their businesses will continue to take in huge losses, or worse, may go out of business entirely. Angus McIndoe, the owner of Angus McIndoe Restaurant says he is surprised that the strike has lasted as long at it has. McIndoe says "First of all we thought everything was going to get settled on Sunday, and I think the rest of the world thought that as well. So this is new territory for us. We really thought it would be fixed by now, and we had banked on taking a loss for one whole week, and then getting back on our feet and working through the holidays and making it back. Now that doesn't look like a possibility." Angus McIndoe says his restaurant is down 60-percent since the strike began. He also says, he still is operating with a full staff even though his restaurant is nearly empty. And if the strike is not settled soon, and continues into the December holiday season, McIndoe fears the worst. "It could absolutely finish the restaurant off. A small business like this can't bear the losses at this particular time of the year when you've banked on making some kind of profit this time of year. November and December are your two best months in any restaurant." Next door, at the Theatre Circle gift shop, there are few customers in the aisles and store shelves are full of Broadway souvenirs such as hats, magnets and coffee mugs. One woman who walked into the store called it a "Ghost town". Craig Coursey, the general manager of the gift shop, says the strike has devastated his small business. He said, "Normally this time of year, two days before Thanksgiving we'd be having a party outside. Lots of people inside, lots of people excited about the shows, buying stuff before they go, buying stuff after they go. So yeah, quite a bit. It hit the pocketbook." Coursey says he doesn't even want to think about what would happen if the strike continues into December. "The busiest week of the year is between Christmas and New Years, so if it lasted through that week, that would be bad." The comptroller for the city of New York puts the daily economic losses from the theatre strike at about 2 million U.S. dollars a day. The League of American Theaters and Producers says the strike is costing Broadway productions about 17 million U.S. dollars for every day it lasts. At NYC & Company, the official marketing and tourism organisation for the City of New York, Chief Executive Officer, George Fertitta says his agency is doing its best to try to generate new business for the business in the city's Theatre District. He says, "The restaurants that are within the Theatre District and clearly the theatres themselves have seen a complete decline, and we've created programs as I've mentioned that will help bump it up a little bit and help people be aware of the fact that there are many wonderful restaurants in the Theatre District that you couldn't get a reservation in them because they were so popular that and now you have an opportunity to try those restaurants and perhaps you weren't able to before." Most of Broadway's theatres went dark on November 10 when stagehands walked off the job and onto the picket lines. The union representing the stagehands, Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, are mired in a contract dispute with theatre owners and producers. At issue is a set of new work rules about how many stagehands are needed to work on a particular show and for how long.

ITN Source | November 21, 2007

Tags:. .upcoming. .hats. .gift. .themselves. .theaters