Planning a Concert at St Matthew's
We are always glad to host concerts and other events – subject, of course, to the church diary, and to the approval of the Vicar and Churchwardens. We need to ensure that we have the “people resources” to help with them, and that our costs are covered. We are a charity, so we need to balance our desire for the church to be open, used and welcoming, and ensuring that we have an income so we can remain open, used, and welcoming. If you would like to discuss an event, please contact us (details below).
These details might help you plan:
There are choir stalls at the front of the church. For services they face inwards, the better to hear each other. The stalls can be slid away of swivelled to face the audience. That is a job for some sturdy people.
The wooden box to the left is the new organ console. The stalls shown above will accommodate about 40, and there are another 40-ish folding chairs in the Fellowship Room, some of which you’ll want to keep there for wobbly audience members during refreshments. There are also some inward-facing choir-stalls available to perch on in the chancel, behind the arches – they do not move, and are not very comfortable.
Toilets and the kitchen are in the Fellowship Room at the car-park end of the church. (There are pictures of those on the Fellowship Room page).
For changing, there’s the option of using the old Choir Vestry, now known as the Walter Evans Room. This is reached by a door behind the organ console, so the choir would troop in at the front. Here are two views of that room. (It will be tidied before it is used!).
Here is how the choir see the audience:
You’ll spot the metal portable conductor’s stand at left and, at centre, the top of a wooden lectern with microphone clip. The sound system is mid-range lift designed for speech, rather than music. While a choir won’t need any amplification, a mike can be useful for introductions – be wary of it at all other times, lest your prompts echo around you!
There’s an electric piano in the church which you are welcome to use.
There is flat access in to the church, and the pews can seat 108 (or a few more if you squash people up a bit). We had an audience of 113 for the Voices Choir Concert in May 2019.