FEEDBACK

We welcome any feedback from choristers and music directors. In particular, we would love your comments on Jacinta Tobin’s workshop and on the Festival Choir if you participated in either as a chorister or member of the audience. No question is mandatory, feel free to submit your response at any time.

Note that selections for single answer questions are made by clicking in the circle to the left of your selection. When the area to click in is a square then more than one selection can be made.

This survey will be open until the end of September, at which time your feedback will be discussed by the members of the organising committee.

Section A – for singers in performing choirs

Please rate your choir’s experience of the choir festival.

Any particularly good things you’d like to mention? We are interested in both musical and social satisfaction, as both almost equal parts of a choir experience

Any not so good things? Please let us know about anything we might be able to improve for next year?

For 2023, we are thinking of providing chorister registrations onsite at your rehearsal/warmup venue prior to your choir’s performance. Would this be better or worse for you than registering in the RSL club in your own time?

In 2022 the Committee felt that the choir hangout space at the RSL was not well-used. Would abandoning this in 2023 bother you?

Did you buy tickets for yourself for any other sessions besides the one(s) you contributed to?

At Blackheath Choir Festival we aim to provide a non-competitive atmosphere in which every choir is welcomed and appreciated. Would you like to make any comments about the rest of the weekend, eg. the programming, any choirs or music that inspired you, the receptiveness of town businesses to the influx of festival goes?

Section B – Festival Choir

If no, can you tell us what might make joining the Festival Choir more attractive to you in future? Eg repertoire choices, selection of musical director, rehearsal arrangements.

The next questions in this Section are for those who sang in the Festival Choir. Firstly, please rate your Festival Choir experience:

Did you gain musical satisfaction from the Festival Choir experience?

Did you gain social satisfaction/ an improved sense of well-being from the Festival Choir experience?

Section C – for audience members

How would you rate the festival program, based on the following descriptors?

  • Excellent. Varied and well-supported programming of choirs. The workshop was engaging and the festival choir was inspiring.
  • Very good. Enjoyed the sessions I attended and found much to keep me engaged for the day / the weekend.
  • Good. There was much on the program that I enjoyed.
  • Fair. There were only a few things of interest on the program.
  • Disappointing. There was very little on the program that I connected with.

Based on your experience, would you attend the Choir Festival again?

Section D – about you

This information will help us when applying for grants and funding.

While attending the festival, excluding purchasing your ticket, what was your average daily spend? eg food, accommodation.

How was your experience of buying meals and other necessities in Blackheath during the festival based on the following descriptors:

  • Good – outlets were ready for us and coped well
  • Fair – had one or several long waits
  • Poor – the town seemed unprepared for the influx of visitors

Section E – for musical directors of choirs

We reduced the warm up time from 40 to 30 minutes to make better use of the few rehearsal spaces available, especially on Sundays when cannot access most of the local churches.

To facilitate a better festival experience for musical directors we are thinking of offering you complimentary tickets. Please comment on this proposal, indicating the number of additional sessions you might like to attend.

We now receive 50 to 60 choirs that register to sing. Are you as an MD happy to be allocated only 15 minutes in order to have up to 60 choirs perform during the festival? (In selecting “no” the upshot is to limit the number of choirs that perform, and for choirs to not necessarily sing in every festival.)

We have received many comments about choirs exceeding their allocated time and we plan to be clearer about set list lengths in our instructions to choirs next year. One way of reminding choirs about their allocated time is for the Stage Manager to give a 5 minutes warning indication.

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