Hotel, Live Theater Synergy Spawns Opportunity

Grange Hotels, based in London, has made a special commitment to theater and the arts.

Claire Farrington, partnership manager at the company, said Grange has a rich philanthropic history. The company supports a range of arts and cultural endeavors, including the City of London Festival, the London International Festival and the Darbar Music Festival.

Farrington said the hotel has the “flexibility and freedom” to support the arts due to its mission. One of the aims of its arts outreach is “attracting a “different audience.”

For example, the Grange Holborn Hotel in London partnered last year with the Defibrillator Theatre Company on Hotel Plays, a set of three Tennessee Williams plays: “Green Eyes,” “The Travelling Companion” and “Sunburst.” The plays, which ran from 4 October 2012 to 27 October 2012, were staged in three suites on three floors of the hotel and were suited for presentation in a hotel since the plays were all set in hotels.

One of the key factors behind Grange’s partnership on Hotel Plays was its philosophy of “bringing something to consumers rather than the other way around,” Farrington said.

In addition, the hotel set out to bring theater out of the theater and place it in a non-traditional context, such as a hotel, she said.  A key advantage of this kind of production is that it leveraged the captive audience of hotel guests.

There were also clear cost and logistical advantages to running the Hotel Plays at the Grange Holborn Hotel*. The production was less expensive and transportable, Farrington said.

Although she said the Grange hotels didn’t view its involvement with Hotel Plays as a revenue-generating exercise, the plays were well attended. Rather, the benefits of partnering on those plays were gaining an association with the productions and the exposure they afforded.

Grange currently has cross-promotional arrangements with three theaters, including the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, the Old Vic and Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, all located in London. As such, they’ve focused on partnering with theaters “outside the mainstream,” Farrington said.

The company’s theater partnerships are designed to attract a “non-corporate” audience that might not ordinarily stay at their hotels, she said.

Farrington said there are some key challenges in running productions like the Hotel Plays at a hotel. The hotel must contend with some disruption of hotel life and security issues, she said.

Reinventing spaces
For the Latchis Hotel and Theatre in Brattleboro, Vermont, mixing theater and the arts with hotel operations seemed natural from the outset.

The company has a long history of merging hotel and theater operations, dating back to its inception in 1938 as part of its mission to “reinvent spaces,” said Gail Nunziata, managing director of Latchis Arts.

Along the way, the hotel’s theater presented silent films and vaudeville. 

Currently, the Latchis Corporation operates the Latchis Theatre, which has four screens, including one main stage accommodating 750 people. In addition to movies, the main stage is rented to community arts organizations, which present concerts of established performers, live theater and other arts performances, using those events as fundraising vehicles, Nunziata said.

Performers at these events are offered a free one-night stay at the Latchis Hotel most times of the year or discounted hotel rates after their complimentary one-night stay, Nunziata said. Theater revenues represent 33% of the business of Latchis Corporation, with arts performances representing less than 2% of their budget, according to Nunziata.

The theater sells about 50,000 movie tickets a year, she said. It primarily presents art and independent films though it also offers commercial films.

The hotel offers a promotional package combining a weekend stay with theater passes, which is very popular but has incidental importance to the hotel’s bottom line, Nunziata said. However, the package has an impact on return visits to the hotel, she said.

Corinthia’s commitment
Arts are deeply ingrained in the hotel’s mission at the Corinthia Hotel London, and  management embarked on an initiative called “The Corinthia Artist in Residence,” which is designed to “champion British talent within different art disciplines,” according to a spokesman for the hotel.

Last year, the photographic artist Noémie Goudal created three large scale pieces called Unknown Views for display in the hotel. This year, the hotel devoted special attention to the theater. The theater company Look Left Look Right ran an immersive play called “Above and Beyond” at the Corinthia Hotel London from 18 March 2013 to 21 March 2013. The play “transformed the hotel into a set, with guests and visitors acting as protagonists,” the hotel’s spokesman said. As such, the play “challenged the way they perceive and react to the environment around them.”