Community Meeting: HOBT’s Home in the Avalon Theatre

COMMUNITY MEETING AND SURVEY

We would like to invite you to participate in a discussion of the future of HOBT’s home in the Avalon Theater. Please complete this online survey.  It should take you about ten minutes to complete.

Our beloved Avalon has been home to HOBT for 28 years. During that time, this building has functioned as a performance space, a puppet building workshop, a banquet hall, an office suite, a wedding chapel, a disco, a community gathering space, a classroom, a kitchen, a conference center, a landmark, an artist studio, an art gallery, a movie theatre, a warehouse, a music venue, and a museum. When our community has expressed a need, the Avalon has done its best to serve.

At the same time, the Avalon currently has poor air quality, marginal physical accessibility, outdated infrastructure, and inefficient heating and cooling systems.  We don’t have enough office space, classroom space, workshop space or storage space. Our lights, sound, and seating are far out of date, and the system of hanging theatre lights is cumbersome and quite unsafe.

Our presence in this space has meant so many things to so many people over nearly 30 years.  We also have a responsibility to provide safe, accessible, adequate space for the work we do. How do we balance these needs and make the best choice for HOBT and our community?

WITHIN THE NEXT YEAR, we will need to make a choice where to put our energy: Should we deepen our investment in the Avalon, or will we better serve our mission and our stakeholders if we find a new space?

This will be a difficult decision to make, and we want your input.

In The Heart of the Beast - Avalon Theatre