A NOTE ABOUT THE AZTEC SHOWTRAX CATALOG
Aztec Showtrax LLC is first and foremost a part of our Greater Live Theatre Support Organization! Combined with TheatreMarketing.com and each of the individual resources, trainings, communities and partnerships, our goal is to provide as many useful and impactful resources as we can obtain and produce to our ever-growing list of clientele in the World Wide Theater Community...
Whether that be providing World Class Musical Tracks performed by our Aztec Showtrax Studio Orchestra, our Library of Sales, Marketing, Social Media & Business Growth Training Programs, a global network of Theatre Companies to provide all forms of Production Assistance, Internet Properties, Web Design and Development assistance, Small Business Consulting, Executive & Entrepreneurial Coaching, and any other invaluable resource, tool or connection we come across in our adventures that we feel might assist the members of our Global Theater Community to improve the quality of their productions, increase the size of their audiences and the average price of the tickes paid by them, increase the level of commitment and engagement from their local communities, improve the frequency and volume of financial donations & fund raising efforts, and maximizing the resources to be found in Corporate Sponsorships from the largest employers in their community.
In keeping with so large a goal, from day one in our company, we wanted to provide the largest catalog in the industry, and as many great track options for producers as possible. Therefore obviously, that would be impossible if we limited the shows we made available to only those that we ourselves were able to afford to produce in-house using our live studio orchestra. We've spent small fortunes on some of the tracks that we've built over the years.
So it's important to note that while not every show in our catalog has been built in-house by our staff, we're confident in the solutions provided by each and every track in our catalog.
From the day we opened our doors way back in 2004, we've allowed other producers and theaters to place tracks that they have produced in our catalog for two reasons:
First, because WE SHARE REVENUES with them! They will continue to benefit from the time, effort, and expense of building their tracks.
Secondly, if it's a track that we don't have in our catalog yet, then we'd much prefer to offer something rather than nothing as an option.
* All tracks that come from outside producers
are noted as such on both the Catalog of Shows page and their individual Show samples page:
Whenever possible, we provide a complete list of the materials that the tracks include, attempt to provide as comprehensive a list of what may not be complete, so far as we're aware and if there any pre-made cuts we know of so those investigating the show may determine if the tracks might still work for them.
THE GREAT DEBATE:
In Fact...
Before we first allowed a Track Partner to place their materials in our catalog over 10 years ago, we had a long series of discussions amongst the Principals of the company at that time. (Over the past 11 years, the vast majority of our staff have been Theatre Professionals ourselves... Producers, Directors, Actors, Choreographers, Music Directors, etc...)
We'd all had decades of Live Theatre, Film and Professional experience to draw from and at the end of the day, the conversation that ultimately concluded our debate about whether or not to put tracks in our catalog that were not built by us, not controlled by us, and of greatest concern, that we didn't have the full out Studio Sessions to edit or improve, went something like this:
"On one hand, we know that MOST Directors & perhaps even more so, Music Directors, will most probably be sticklers about the word-for-word and note-for-note expectations they've developed in all of the hard work they've done in preparing for their production of this show.
As Such...to provide a potentially incomplete, and almost certainly "artistically different" choice in terms of where cuts might be made, what dance breaks or verses might have been removed to shorten a production necessarily, will most certainly cause some concern and frustration among our clientele." - Said ONE individual who shall remain nameless.
They felt it was an unnecessary stress to put on a fledgling company and a potentially fatal misstep right out of the gate by NOT providing a flawless, perfect experience for our newfound client relationships.
The price ranges for track partners materials are for the most part lower than the tracks that we build ourselves to compensate for less flexibility. Instead of having the full recording sessions, most of the time they're only able to send us the final mix-down tracks. We can make some modifications to those tracks, but are obviously more limited than shows that we have the full studio sessions at our disposal. Over the years, when we find a particular track from one of our partners that has become very popular and requested, but the track doesn't quite live up to Aztec Showtrax preferred standards, then we'll go back in the studio and rebuild the show ourselves.
Of course, would like to say every single song from every single musical was played by a 100% live orchestra, but if that were the case, we would have only about half of the tracks that we have now to offer.
We trust that our clients and prospective clients will understand our attempt to provide as many resources as possible, notwithstanding the fact that they may not all be flawless. and being sensitive to that fact, we always do all that we can to compensate.
However, it is most important to note, that we do not place any materials in our catalog that we are not confident in their abilities to satisfy the needs of our discerning clientele. While we feel confident in every show we have listed, we understand that a large portion of this business is very subjective artistically, and we respect each producers right to have their opinion. We simply don't have the luxury of running the kind of theatrical support organization that we want to run and not take every opportunity to provide useful resources to our clients.