General Info

Performing Parameters

Suitcase Show vs. Roadtrip Show

Within our "Suitcase Show" option, Pastor Josh can travel with just one carry on bag or he can travel with larger checked bags for aprox. $25-35 additional travel fee. It might not seem like that much of the Exhibit could travel by air in a couple suitcases but you'd be surprised at how good we can pack! And if you book additional actors to fly with Pastor Josh, that's two more suitcases for each actor...

For Road Trip Shows, Pastor Josh drives to location. This option allows us to bring many of the things that are too large for flying or not permitted on airplanes. Such items that can be brought on road trips include the Wardrobe, mannequin costume displays, the Dawn Treader Stateroom furniture, Lucy's Beauty Mirror, and the frozen Oreius Statue, as well as fragile items such as maquette models that include the Stone Table and many of the WETA figures. This option is currently only available on the East coast within a days drive of our current ministry location in the Washington DC area. We hope to make the Central and West coasts available for bookings sometime in the future. Please inquire if you are interested in this option and we will certainly see if we can work with your request and at the least keep you informed on our progress of getting additional states open for travel.

Travel Continued...

If you are within roughly an eight hour drive from our current location at the time of your event, we will offer the cheaper driving option to you. Anything over a day’s drive requires airline flights as we can not at this time eat up lots of days just in travel. (Our Ministry team all have other jobs and responsibilities. This is not our full-time career.) We can also split up travel costs between multiple bookings in the same general area held on the same day or within a day's travel of each other. We do encourage clients to try to find another organization within your area to book us at the same time to save on travel expenses. The more consecutive bookings at the same time and same area that can be linked together the cheaper the travel expenses will be as they will be split evenly over all clients. Should a client partner cancel, however, the entire fee will be charged to the other client(s) that have been linked together. Please be aware of this risk and possibility should you decide to partner with another client(s). We do not absorb the added travel costs should a client cancel in a partnership. Other clients within a partnership will be made aware of the situation as soon as it occurs and given the option of absorbing the full travel expense bill and continuing with their booked event or changing the date of their event or canceling all together. Canceling of events with required deposits are non-refundable even for situations beyond your control.

If you are within a local proximity (up to 8hrs drive) to where we are currently, we will travel by the cheaper vehicle option. Currently we utilize a large van and either a small or large travel trailer depending on show size. Should we need a middle size trailer or a large acting cast or road crew, we may have to rent additional transportation and possibly contract an extra driver. Any additional travel arrangements needed are paid by the client. Client will be given a price quote after they have decided on the kind of event they wish to have.

If you are not local, we will fly in to your location. Flight fees are paid by the client and variable depending on the current state of the airline industry. We will do our best to book the cheapest and best workable option. We are fine with traveling economy. If we can bring all our items in carry on bags (legally and size-wise) on the plane we will do so. Most items will not be permitted in carry on bags so there will be additional bag fees for each checked bag we bring. This cost will be part of our transportation bill paid by the client. For our own personal transport to your location from the airport you can either have someone from your event pick us up or we will either book an airport shuttle or charter a taxi. If a taxi service is arranged this will be added to the transportation fee total for the event. We do not normally rent personal vehicles unless we will be traveling to multiple locations within a short radius of each other over the same couple days. We can however if necessary and add this to our transportation bill.

Either by website photos or emailed photos, we require a visual picture of the outside of your facility so that we will know what building we are looking for upon our arrival.

Lodging

We prefer hotel accommodations near the booked event. Either a Holiday Inn or Quality Inn type hotel. We do not need fancy accommodations, but we also don’t wish to stay in run-down, unclean, or bad neighborhood motels either. We will book our own accommodations and will look for the best price in your area and submit a price quote to the client prior to booking. Lodging arrangements are reimbursed to us as part of the program price quote. We do not book any rooms until a contract has been signed and the lodging quote to the client is acceptable. Should an event cancel on the client’s end and we have to cancel hotel rooms, if there are any charges levied against us for the cancellation, this will be billed to the client. If we have to cancel an event on our end, we will be responsible for all fees.

We may also be open to staying in the homes of event staff, particularly churches but ask that they only be the homes of church staff members and be devoid of smoking and pets (most of the ministry team are very allergic people.) As most hotel accommodations provide continental breakfast, we will expect this if we stay in a host home.

In either case, Pastor Josh will need his own room as he does not share lodging with other cast and crew or host family members. If additional performers are also traveling, they will need a separate room as well. In some cases multiple performers can share the same room. Some performers travel with a parent chaperone that will require accommodations as well.

For transportation to and from the lodging arrangements, the client is responsible, either with event staff vehicles or taxi/shuttle services.

Meals

We do not charge the client for meals even though this is common industry practice for guest speakers and performers. We know we would be paying to eat regardless of doing an event so we don’t charge for this. We do appreciate and graciously accept meals offered in conjunction with your event.

Space and Environment

Most all of the speaker options can be booked for any type of location and will work for us just fine. However, if you wish to book the Exhibit on any level there are certain space and environment requirements. The exhibit has to be in a climate controlled indoor space. Only the tents are allowed outside. If your event is on a floor other than a flat entrance first floor, you must have an elevator to the floor our presentation will be on. We have multiple large rolling trunks that can not physically be lifted up stairs. If the exhibit area is going to be left unwatched for any length of time by either ourselves or an event staff host, we will have to house the exhibit in a space that can be locked. We will not leave our exhibit unattended and unsecured for any length of time. We will also request dimensions and photos of your space (and especially doorways) prior to a signed agreement so that we may be for certain that our exhibit will work within your space.

Performing Needs

We ask that we are given a private room near the performing area that we may prepare in prior to the start of the event. This can double as a dressing room but we will also need to know where the nearest bathroom is to the performing area.

We will also need to meet with your event technical director to discuss and test media needs. At the minimum, we will need a wireless headset or clip on microphone for each of the presenters in our program. Because of the dramatic elements within our show, we can not use stand microphones or handheld microphones. If we are on a sanctuary stage and performing drama elements , we will need any podiums, musical instruments, and chairs to be removed prior to our arrival. If it is a singular presentation with Pastor Josh, much of this may be able to stay. This will be discussed with the client on a case by case basis. We can also potentially borrow wireless mics from our home base church should a client not have sufficient equipment.

Audience

We will need to know prior to booking what kind of audience demographics you intend on having. Is this event for your children’s ministry or school and therefore it is all elementary age children?  Is it a family event with mixed ages from little to senior?  Is it a fan event for Narnia enthusiasts?  This will help us tailor our presentation to fit well for your audience. Our performances and presentations can be general in nature or they can (and we prefer) contain religious content that is gleaned from the book writings and the life of C.S. Lewis.

Admission

If you wish to charge for our event you are welcome to do so. We can not offer advice on what you should charge or how you should because every place is different. Some places can do this successfully, some can’t. If you have never done this before, we recommend that you seek council of other organizations within your area that have. We also encourage you to read the list of helpful suggestions on Tickets below. 

Event Pricing

Our shows and exhibit displays vary widely in price due to the extreme range of possibilities of offerings we provide. This will be discussed and determined with each client. We do understand however that budget is a key determining factor in whether a client is able to book our ministry or not. Therefore, we will attempt here to give a fair estimation of some of the event possibilities and the range of price they would fall into. First, you should estimate your travel and lodging expense based up where you are located and where we will be coming from. You can easily google airplane fares and local hotels in your area to come up with this estimate. The airport we would fly out of would Washington Dulles (IAD) if we are flying. Gas expense would vary greatly depending on distance and what kind/how many vehicles we would be traveling in. Next you need to determine who you wish to come. Do you want a single speaker (such as Pastor Josh) or performer (such as Lucy)? All chosen performers require Pastor Josh in addition (in order to direct the performance). Each actor is paid for their performances and Pastor Josh asks for an honorarium depending on the amount of work involved in putting together your event and executing it. The last expense to determine is how much of the Narnia Exhibit will be at your event. Suitcase Shows are fairly inexpensive, where the full emersion event is several thousand dollars. To give a rough ballpark pricing structure (that doesn't include travel or lodging) Pastor Josh's honorarium is usually around $750-$1000, Narnia actors are $50-$200, and the Exhibit can be anywhere from $1500 to $7500 depending on how much is brought and the work involved in transporting and setting it up/taking it down. We will do our best to work with any budget but please keep in mind that every event we do has a certain amount of operational expenses involved and we must clear at least these. Budget must be determined to be available prior to us committing any serious time or effort on your possible event. We also do not schedule commit any of our team to your possible event until money and dates have been confirmed. At this time due to the high costs of developing this ministry, we are not in a position to offer larger shows for free. If we can do what you are interested in locally and easily and without any overhead expenses and our chosen performers are willing to volunteer their time and talents, we may consider your event for free if there is some other tangible benefit such as promotional exposure or the offering of a location we simply wish to perform at even for free (such as we did for the C.S. Lewis Institute). These sort of locations we consider it an honor to even be permitted to showcase in! 

PS- Should you have read this far and you represent either one of the museums of the Smithsonian, Wolftrap, or the Kennedy Center, we very much want to perform for you and will do our first performance or Exhibit showing for free! It would truly be an honor and our pleasure. Please Contact Us!

At Conclusion

We are more than happy to stay after an event and be available to answer questions, take pictures, and sign autographs if so desired. If it is an evening event, in general, we do wish to be taken to our room accommodations before midnight. If we are leaving early in the morning, we will need to factor in time after your event to pack up our things or the exhibit. Please keep this in mind. We do most of the work ourselves and don’t have backstage or assistant staff crew.

Questions?

Should you have any additional questions or needs, please feel free to contact us. We are available seven days a week by email and phone: josh@livinglikelucy.com and 571.230.2762

Tickets

Here are few helpful suggestions if you choose to do tickets for your event:

1. Print quality tickets.

2. Have a Ticket Release Day. The ticket release should be three weeks before you event date.

3. Announce Ticket Release Day in your location and on social media every week for 3-4 weeks prior. Use website and publications but the best advertising tool is the kids! Give away VIP tickets as prizes for kids who sell the most tickets (or get people to register for free ones).

4. Offer tickets online and in person. We suggest Eventbrite.com for online distribution but you MUST have some in-hand also.

5. Create a Preferred Seating Plan. Designate half of your seating capacity as "preferred." Advanced ticket sales are preferred seating. Allow preferred seating ticket holders in the door at least 15 minutes prior to general admission. At the door tickets (roll call) or past a certain deadline for purchase tickets are seated during general admission. Make sure the tickets are clearly marked differently so ticket takers can quickly see the difference.

6. Do not give someone a stack of tickets to give away (if they are free) just because you have a lot of them. That would give the impression that the tickets have zero value. You can host your event for free to the public but your tickets are valuable because your event is a big deal!

7. If your a faith based event location, don't forget to pray daily for the desired outcome and the preparation and safety of all those involved!