The American Down Under

[showco]

Hi everyone,

My name is Terrence Williams and I am currently the PSM on tour with Spiegelworld's EMPIRE which is presently in Melbourne, Australia.  My previous work includes stints with Cirque du Soleil, Farrington Productions in Las Vegas, Illusionist Steve Wyrick, and a stint as Production Manager for the hit show Absinthe at Caesars Palace which is what led to my current project - steering an Australian National Tour as an American on his first trip through the many lovely cities of the land down under.

I am also an avid coder and software developer.  Part of my reason for joining the board is to search for like-minded professionals to provide some input on the direction of the products I am designing.  My first app (name not mentioned so that people don't get too crazy) has just hit the app store so I'm very excited, as I dive into my second of a list of about eight apps for stage managers.

Looking forward to reading my way through the many topics on the board.

Terrence R. Williams
Production Stage Manager
EMPIRE Australian National Tour

[KMC]

Welcome to SMNetwork, good to have you onboard.

I am curious as to the primary purpose of your apps - are they intended as for-sale products to earn profit?  If so, have you done market research to determine what your consumer base wants, acceptable price points, etc.?

The reason I ask is that this discussion seems to come up once a year or so but never really gains any traction, and reviews of SM-specific software/apps to date are lukewarm at best.  Around here we'll all say we want x, y, z - but how that translates into profitability for an app developer with such an incredibly small (compared to something like MS Office) target consumer base is what always escapes me.

Curious to your thoughts on that - and happy posting!

[Mac Calder]

Welcome to the board Terrence.

I was Operations Co-Ordinator for the inhouse AV Company (Staging Connections) at Crown Melbourne for a fair while - and am Ops Manager at Crown Perth - were you PSMing here when the Spiegeltent was over my side of the world?

Nothing made me happier than when my summer marquee was cancelled to make room for EMPIRE. And I believe my colleagues are ecstatic that Studio 3 is pretty much out of commission whilst your tent is on the rooftop.

Look forward to hearing some info about your apps.

-Mac

[PSMKay]

Hello Terrence, thanks for joining. I see the mods of the Tools of the Trade board have found you already, you'll be in good hands with them.

I'd like to see a developer enter the app market who writes their own code (instead of paying someone else to do it), has SM experience, and is willing to talk to the community to find out what it needs/wants in an app before building something unnecessary and silly that trivializes the industry. So many people think we're just about stopwatches and calling cues, when the job is really about communication and coordination of schedules. A lot of people from the outside write apps to the "ideal" of the stage manager without knowing the actual needs of the job and what they'd pay money to simplify.

Good luck, I look forward to seeing your contributions.

[showco]

Apologies for the delay, everyone.  I didn't realize that I hadn't selected to receive notification of replies!


To KMC -- Yes, the apps are both for profit and also because I have needs on my own productions, so there is a personal tie-in as well as a common need factor being addressed.  You are correct that it is difficult to combine profitability with high-feature apps for a small market.  The only real solution to this is to price said apps/software at a price that is appropriate for the number of units it is likely to sell.  While a hot $0.99 game may sell 20,000 copies in a day, an app for stage management is likely to sell 20 on a good day (and maybe not even that).  Most niche apps carry a higher price-tag simply because they have to in order to be viable.  If stage managers want those apps developed, that will be the cost.  I would love to discuss this more.

To Mac Calder -- Yes, that was me that toured through your lovely city in July/August of last year.  I had a great time in Perth and loved meeting the wonderful people during our season there.  Melbourne is treating us quite well at the moment -- nothing but packed shows and great reviews!

To PSMKay -- I am developing these apps myself, which I agree is what has been severely lacking from what little offerings we have seen.  While my first app is a take on show timing (and hopefully a serious improvement on what is out there), my second app (in development now) is specific to schedules and communication as you suggest.  I am more than willing to include input from a select group, but have found that opening the floor leads to too many cooks in the kitchen, if you know what I mean.  Currently, I have a group of 5 PSMs from different markets that test and give feedback for me before I release.

Thanks for the warm welcomes!

Terrence Williams

[KMC]

Thanks for the response - and certainly an interesting discussion.

I've started a poll and thread here to continue the discussion.