Talk:Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage

message: The Stanley Theatre has a lot of history, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find any references yet. If anyone can cite information about its glory days as a movie theatre, that would really help the article. Also, if anyone has information about the period when it looked like it was going to be converted into shops (?) and the Save Our Stanley movement to preserve it, that would be helpful too. Thanks—let's make this a really great article! Moisejp 03:41, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Historical information

message: I think this list should be separated into a separate article as it is getting rather long. Separation wouldn't take anything away from the content of this page as it stands but will make scrolling to the bottom of the page significantly faster. Thoughts? Konnetikut (talk) 01:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for you input into the article, Konnetikut. I was wondering about that too. I'm not against separating that part into a separate article. Let's give several days to see if anybody else has any opinions on the matter, and if not one of us can go ahead and split it up. Moisejp (talk) 02:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Just having read the article I don't have a problem with the list being there, and I kinda think it would be nicer to leave it there.  On the other hand I have a fast DSL link, and can see that someone on a dialup might not want to wait for the extra information.  I think it could go either way, but it is still fairly short and doesn't seem bad.  Perhaps someone could experiment with a double-column arrangement with two years side by side. Loren.wilton (talk) 09:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

text: I will warn you that splitting it into another article is likely to get it deleted. A year or so ago several editors, myself included, worked diligently on a list of the operas performed year by year by the Santa Fe Opera. It lasted for a couple of months but was then deleted for various reasons. I apologize for not being able to provide you a link to that discussion. I just wanted to let you know that it you are more likely to avoid the wrath of the deletionistas if you leave it here. MarnetteD | Talk 22:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: List of productions and events at Stanley Theatre?

message: The Stanley Theatre has not been self-supporting financially, but has gotten millions of dollars of direct government subsidy support and grants for more than a decade. Here are some sources, though I couldn't easily find any publicly disclosed budget or financial reports. Gwen Gale (talk) 08:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is very typical of most regional legit theater companies.  Live productions, especially musicals, are very expensive to produce and operate, and it is rare that a local theater company can afford a ticket price that will cover the production costs, building upkeep, and administration, and possibly leave something left over for new production development. I certainly can't see anything here that would explain the IP editor wanting to delete the theatre history section, unless it was the association (long past) with a tobacco company.  Loren.wilton (talk) 09:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would think they would only have rm'd the mention of the tobacco company then. Looks to me like someone doesn't want readers to see anything about the past government support and subsidies, which have been in the millions (and whatever the IP said, who knows if it was representing the theatre). Gwen Gale (talk) 09:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose that is possible, but if you look at the history of any other regional theater company they show a long list of contributors including various government agencies, and if the theater was a conversion from a movie house (as often is the case) there is almost always a local government contribution involved in the early fund raising.  They almost always have at least a short description of their history including the "saving of the building" in the lobby and often in the program for the current show, often listing the major contributors and total cost.  This case is just plain strange.  I suspect whoever was doing this probably has nothing to do with the theater. Loren.wilton (talk) 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have sent a request for clarification off to the ArtsClub (which currently manages the Stanley) publicity department.  It will be interesting to see if they respond, and what they say. Loren.wilton (talk) 23:00, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the sources, Gwen Gale. When I have time I will have a look at them and see if I can find some useful info for the article (or if anyone else wants to, by all means!). Moisejp (talk) 15:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources on past funding and government subsidies

message: I sent an email off to TPTB at Stanley.  Response was:
:Thanks so much for your email. We had absolutely no knowledge of this and appreciate you bringing it to our attention. We have no objections to any of the content that currently appears except for that it needs to be updated a wee bit.
:I am not sure how to deal these removals of information as I have never dealt with contributing or editing Wikipedia. I was just about to embark on it for my first time! Rest assured though, that these removals are not endorsed by the Arts Club. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
I think we can safely revert any massive removals of information from the article. Loren.wilton (talk) 00:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's great that is all sorted out. Well, if this page keeps getting vandalized, we could think about semi-protecting it. Moisejp (talk) 00:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Thanks Loren for emailing them! Gwen Gale (talk) 02:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If the vandal returns (and there block should have expired by now) you're best bet will be to report them to WP:AIV rather then trying to semiprotect the page. In my experience pages don't get semiprotected unless they are under attack from several IPs/editors. Of course there is a first time for everything, but, since this is a single purpose IP - that is removing sourced info from this page - just make sure to put warnings up to level four on their talk page and them report them to AIV. They have already been blocked once so amy admin looking at the situation will see the need for further action. Cheers to all for taking care of this page. MarnetteD | Talk 18:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It will probably be a different IP address next time, unless they come back real soon.  That IP is Shaw Cable, which is a major residental provider in the Vancouver area.  However, revert and report will likely take care of the case. Loren.wilton (talk) 00:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reason for removals of information resolved 

message: I seem to recall as a movie theatre the Stanley had a THX Lucasfilm sound system but I couldn't find anthing about it online. If anyone else can find any references about that, cheers in advance! Moisejp (talk) 15:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like this would have been a fairly standard/transparent characteristic for a movie theatre during the Stanley's later life as one. Only to bring it up though, there could be some kind of an inventory valuation/liquidation sheet which has survived from the years when the theatre was closed and later sold. Since goverment funds have been involved ever since, something like that could be part of a public record somewhere and if so, gleaning stuff from it could make for more history. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: THX and Dolby are competing technologies, not the same thing.  Some movies use THX, some use Dolby Labs encoding.  THX certifies every theater install before they allow the place to use the THX logo.  They would probably have a record of whether the Stanley was ever certified.  It no longer is, it would appear from the THX web site.  In fact only three theaters in Canada are.  I don't recall that Dolby certifies, so they would probably not have records easily available.  In any case, it is almost certain it would have had Dolby equipment, and if it had been a first-run house after the invention of THX it very probably would have had a certified THX installation.  (Note that both Dolby and THX films still have analog stereo tracks so that the film is playable in theaters without the fancier sound equipemnt.) Loren.wilton (talk) 18:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool, I stumbled on the information here: http://web.ncf.ca/az896/03v.htm. And, this page lists about 22 other movies shown at the Stanley between 1983 and 1991! What are we going to do with this info? It's too much to list all of them I guess. Unless we create a separate section of "Some movies shown at the Stanley" like the "Productions and events" section below. But that would probably be too much, huh? It's too bad because it is so exciting to have stumbled on this mother lode of info after having been searching for so long for any movie info I could find. Well, I am going to start by adding some of the bigger names to our existing list, and then we can decide later if there is anything we can do with the other ones. Moisejp (talk) 00:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: From the same source above I also found several movies shown 1954-1974 and 1974-1982, and I tried to select some of the bigger names, and throw in a few "fun" ones. What does everyone think of the list we have right now? Does it need to be trimmed more, or can we make it longer? If anyone wants to go to the sources and add/subtract movies you could. I didn't cut any of the first films I added to the list (The Marrying Man, Dead Again, etc.) because it's nice to have some on the list that come from different sources, but if it is felt these ones are less noteworthy, we could cut them. Oh, but I did cut Star Wars because I felt the reference was weaker than the other ones (it was just relying on one person's memory), and because it wasn't clear if the author of that source saw the movie at the Stanley in its first run or not, and I am trying to keep the films on the list chronological. Here: http://web.ncf.ca/az896/02v.htm it says Star Wars/Empire Strikes back was shown Oct 1, 1982 as a double bill, but I didn't see any mention of Star Wars being shown there in its first run (although it likely was). Moisejp (talk) 02:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Half a thought (or maybe less)!  When the Stanley was a movie house it wasn't the Industrial Alliance Stage, it was the Stanley Theater.  I'm idly wondering about the possibility of splitting the article into two cross-lined articles.  Then there chould be a Stanley Theater article about the movie house that would detail the history up to the point of closure, and noting that it was rebuilt and reopened in XXXX as the IAS, with a wikilink to the current article.  The IAS page would then have about one sentence on the place having been the Stanley Theater (with link to article), mention when it was built and closed, and basically start with the struggles to save the building.  That would allow expanding both sections of the article with a respeciable production list without the lists becoming overwhelming. Loren.wilton (talk) 18:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That thought crossed my mind too, but right now I don't think we have enough information to make a substantial article out of the movie theatre years part, so I would be against breaking it up until we do. Another idea: we were talking above about the possibility of breaking the list of productions into a separate article, and if we did that we could possibly add a list of movies shown to the same article. But as MarnetteD Talk mentioned, some people on Wikipedia don't like "list" articles, and we would have to be careful to do it right if we did decide to do that, so it doesn't get deleted. Moisejp (talk) 23:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think the Stanley Theatre was significantly or widely notable enough for its own article. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:14, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: THX Dolby?

message: * I've gone ahead and started adding information the South Granville Business Association pdf. There's a lot of information in there, and some may be less noteworthy than other stuff. Thinking about the balance of the article, and how much relative weight we may want to give to the different sections, if there is any info I put in the article that you feel is not noteworthy enough, please mention it. I may get carried away with adding information.
* How about the first sentence of the Movie Theatre section? Has it become too many references (right now six for 1930 and three for 1931)? If so, one solution would be to just cut a few. Also, like the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia, the South Granville Business Association pdf also gives Dec 15, 1930 as the opening date, so another solution would be to give four sources for 1930, three for 1931 and then say "with some sources giving the opening date as December 15, 1930" and cite those two references there.
* Gwen Gale (talk), above you said you would like to find more info about the Stanley's cultural role in Vancouver. In the South Granville Business Association pdf it goes on about that quite a bit, on pages 3, 4 and 7. Myself, I am more comfortable reporting "facts," but if you can find a good wording to talk about its cultural impact, using any of the points mentioned in the South Granville pdf, that would be great. I'm not sure if it is notable enough, but I also found the Stanley was voted the best local arts stage in a readers poll in the Georgia Straight in 2004: http://www.straight.com/article/best-of-vancouver-readers-choices-0  I didn't have a chance to check if it won any other years or if the poll was done other times. Moisejp (talk) 15:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and cut the sentence for now, until we can find a home for it. Moisejp (talk) 00:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Miscellaneous thoughts

message: I have been searching through the Arts Club website to find information to help bring this article more up to date. There is quite a lot of information, we just have to decide what to use. One thing is that a lot of the info is about both the Arts Club's stages, not the Stanley stage only, but I think we can work with that.
*Apparently half of the operating revenue from ticket sales. Other income comes from individual donations, individual patronage (the Artistic Director's Circle) which has different levels of patronage with different benefits, and corporate sponsorsips. There is also a list of current sponsors, and if we wanted to we could list some of the bigger ones.
*The Arts Club does a number of community programs, including student matinees, the Understudy program and studentrush.com.
*There is information about box office hours and ticket prices and stuff. And they have packages where you can buy multiple tickets at once, and year passes.
*The 2008/2009 season is up, so I have to update the Productions and Events part of the article.
Any opinions about what else of this to include? Moisejp (talk) 00:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Or another option would be to update the Arts Club Theatre Company page and include lots of the information there. Moisejp (talk) 00:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Information from the Arts Club website

message: I got permission from someone to use several more photos. For now I have put seven of them in a gallery and one more in the Productions and Events section. But I would like to work some of the other seven back into the article. I'm thinking of putting the "Looking North on Granville" one into the Granville Street article with a link to the Stanley article. I wanted to put one of the really nice marquee pictures right at the start of the Stanley article but so far I have been unable to find a nice layout. Another option would be to move or remove the Stanley logo and put a pic in the infobox. Moisejp (talk) 23:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I added captions to the photos in the gallery. I don't think my captions are necessarily very good, so if anyone can improve on them, please do. Also, we don't necessarily have to use all of the pictures, so if it is felt any of them don't add anything to the article, we could cut some of them. Moisejp (talk) 14:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  More photos 

message: I slightly reworded the description of the dome image to make it more along the lines of how these images are captioned in magazines that deal with theater tech and architecture.
I have said "view from the stage" but I don't really know if that is true.  It might have been "from the orchestra pit" or "from the front of the house".  If this is correctly known it would be good to make the description correct.  Also, it would be typical to mention the seating in the image: which section is this?  Orchestra, main seating, first balcony, something else? Loren.wilton (talk) 02:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you save your change? I can't see your change on the page's history. Anyhow, I'm guessing this picture was taken from the seats, just based on another picture I have seen where the stage and both levels of seats are visible. This picture would be from the main seating level. Speaking of which, I have been thinking about trying to add this Stanley seating map to the article, but I'm not sure if I would have to go about it as a fair use image or ask for permission to use it as a copyrighted image. I'm guessing the former, but if no one has any ideas I will look into it. Moisejp (talk) 03:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, guess I didn't!  Ok, about the same wording and this time I'm pretty sure it is saved. Loren.wilton (talk) 05:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor wording change 

message: I added the Stanley to the the template of Landmarks in Metro Vancouver (after consulting its discussion group, but there was no response so I went ahead and added it) and then tried to add the template to the article, but it doesn't show. I think maybe I need to add the Stanley's coordinates, because all the articles for the other spots in the template have their coordinates showing. I tried to find the coordinates using WikiMapia.org, but it kept crashing my Safari. Maybe I will try again later. But if anyone else can easily figure it out, that would be really great too. Thanks! Moisejp (talk) 01:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: PS Here is the link to the template. Moisejp (talk) 01:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I still haven't been able to get the coordinates. Have tried several times, but WikiMapia keeps crashing my Safari. If anyone could help, I'd be very grateful. Moisejp (talk) 07:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: They're embedded in this link. Let me know if you need help with it ;) Gwen Gale (talk) 07:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coordinates