Latest / WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio / Spencer Aurand from The Dixon: Historic Theatre

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Spencer Aurand from The Dixon: Historic Theatre · WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio

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  Speaker 1: Good morning, Sock Valley. You've joined the Waking crew here
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  Speaker 1: on FM ninety five one fourteen sixty WIXN. It's eight
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  Speaker 1: fifteen on your Wednesday, January twenty first morning, and that
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  Speaker 1: means it's time for talk line and I am once
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  Speaker 1: again joined in the booth by our good friends from
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  Speaker 1: the Dixon Historic Theater. Spencer arn is joining me today. Spencer,
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  Speaker 1: how are.
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  Speaker 2: You doing fine? How are you doing today?
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  Speaker 1: I'm doing very well. The folks at home can't get
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  Speaker 1: the wonderful red eye shot that you're getting up me today.
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  Speaker 1: I was telling Spencer before we jumped on, I scratched
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  Speaker 1: contact lens in my eyes. So now just when eye
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  Speaker 1: looks like death, you.
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  Speaker 2: Gotta be careful with those things. They're dangerous you do.
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  Speaker 1: That's why I've got the classes this morning. But we're
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  Speaker 1: not going to talk about that. I've been I'm tired
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  Speaker 1: of it already. We want to talk about the Dixon's
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  Speaker 1: Encore campaign this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, we launched the Dixon on Core campaign last month,
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  Speaker 2: and our hope with this campaign is that we're going
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  Speaker 2: to be able to raise the funds we need to
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  Speaker 2: kind of finish a lot of the original projects wanted
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  Speaker 2: to do during the last renovation, So that is going
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  Speaker 2: to be putting up some new signage, specifically doing a
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  Speaker 2: kind of redo of the repairing the Marquee. The Marquee
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  Speaker 2: on the outside of the ability is actually in pretty
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  Speaker 2: rough shape. If you drive by, you might notice that
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  Speaker 2: there are like some lights out, and that's not a
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  Speaker 2: like just swap the light bulb out. It's like the
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  Speaker 2: whole thing is kind of falling apart, and there's very
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  Speaker 2: little we can do without taking the entire thing apart
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  Speaker 2: and rebuilding it. So we figured if we are going
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  Speaker 2: to consider doing that, we might as well do kind
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  Speaker 2: of a modern restoration of it, put in kind of
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  Speaker 2: a new led Marquee to replace it, and then also
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  Speaker 2: redoing the seats in the theater. We've gotten a lot
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  Speaker 2: of notes from people that our seats could be more comfortable,
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  Speaker 2: and we have some general like modernization improvements we want
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  Speaker 2: to make to those seats to make coming to the
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  Speaker 2: Dition Theater a more comfortable experience, and we had hoped
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  Speaker 2: that that would be part of the original renovations we
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  Speaker 2: were doing the building, but that just didn't work out
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  Speaker 2: with funds and with how much stuff had kind of
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  Speaker 2: increased in price, that just wasn't feasible. Sure, And then
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  Speaker 2: as kind of part of that, we knew that if
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  Speaker 2: we're going to have, especially on the main floor, have
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  Speaker 2: all of those seats already pulled out to be replaced,
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  Speaker 2: that was going to be kind of the ideal time
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  Speaker 2: for us to restore the old toazo floors in the building.
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  Speaker 2: They are, you know, over one hundred years old, and
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  Speaker 2: they haven't been taken super super well care of. Like
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  Speaker 2: even just in the house, the chairs have been moved
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  Speaker 2: around several times, so there's if you look down when
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  Speaker 2: you're in, you'll see that there's just holes from old
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  Speaker 2: rows of chairs just pucked throughout the entire floor.
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  Speaker 1: I mean a hundred years you kind of expect that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been it's been through a lot. The floor
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  Speaker 2: has seen some things, but it deserves some love. So
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  Speaker 2: we we wanted part of this campaign to be actually
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  Speaker 2: restoring those strawsal floors and then us also getting the
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  Speaker 2: equipment to them properly, make sure we can clean and
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  Speaker 2: buff and take care of those floors kind of moving
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  Speaker 2: forward so that in another one hundred years they're still
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  Speaker 2: looking good.
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  Speaker 1: No note that makes perfect sense, No, no point in
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  Speaker 1: doing all these with you know, with the chairs, only
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  Speaker 1: to have to take them all up again once you
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  Speaker 1: you know, on the floors.
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  Speaker 2: That's the last thing I want to do. I don't
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  Speaker 2: want to remove these chairs more than once.
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  Speaker 1: See, I mean, we get it. That's It's like when
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  Speaker 1: my wife asked me moves, I'm like, what else can
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  Speaker 1: we do while we're here, because I don't want to
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  Speaker 1: come back and do this again.
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  Speaker 2: We already had to flip the couch over to clean
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  Speaker 2: it out. We might as well sweep and mop under
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  Speaker 2: the couch. That way, all of it's.
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  Speaker 1: Done, absolutely good thinking. You also want to talk about
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  Speaker 1: some some special local tickets today. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So part of one of the big things I wanted
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  Speaker 2: to do when I became executive directors, I wanted to
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  Speaker 2: kind of find ways to add value for Dixon residents
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  Speaker 2: so that you know, the having the Dixon Theater is
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  Speaker 2: such an amazing thing. It's not something that a lot
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  Speaker 2: of communities have. But at the same time, we get
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  Speaker 2: a lot of support from the city, and I wanted
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  Speaker 2: to find some ways we could do things to make
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  Speaker 2: having the Dixon Theater in town a better exchange for
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  Speaker 2: those residents and make it really worthwhile for them. So
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  Speaker 2: one of the things we're introducing is we're going to
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  Speaker 2: be introducing local Dixon seats. Basically, every single show is
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  Speaker 2: going to have some amount of reserved seats set aside
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  Speaker 2: that only Dixon residents can purchase. They can come into
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  Speaker 2: our box office during box office hours. They just need
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  Speaker 2: to show us a photo ID that has their Dixon
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  Speaker 2: address on it, and you can get most of those
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  Speaker 2: tickets for most of our shows for about ten dollars.
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  Speaker 2: I know there are a couple shows where those are
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  Speaker 2: twenty dollars. I think Tony Danza is one one of
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  Speaker 2: the few examples, because those tickets started like sixty dollars, sure,
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  Speaker 2: but the Dixon seats are I think just twenty. So
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  Speaker 2: the hope with those was that we would be able
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  Speaker 2: to kind of offer up some more affordable seats for
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  Speaker 2: Dixon residents, so that, you know, if someone's interested in
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  Speaker 2: coming to a lot of shows but can't afford you know,
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  Speaker 2: sixty or thirty dollars seats you know, every other weekend,
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  Speaker 2: you know, then they'll they'll have a cheaper option that
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  Speaker 2: they can they can use those Dixon seats and be
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  Speaker 2: able to come to the theater more often.
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  Speaker 1: No, I absolutely love that. That's a great discount. Try
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  Speaker 1: going out and getting entertainment for ten or twenty bucks.
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  Speaker 1: You can't even go to the movie theater and do it.
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  Speaker 1: Now you're getting live entertainment, great shows that you're not
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  Speaker 1: gonna you know, you're not going to see anymore.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's going to be for our full twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty sixth season. So if you want to see upcoming
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  Speaker 2: shows like The Windy City Dueling, Pianos or ACDC Tribute, Thunderstruck,
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  Speaker 2: or the Michael Jackson The Illusion, what else do we
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  Speaker 2: have coming up? Ray Scott, Ray Scott is coming up.
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  Speaker 2: I know you guys are sponsoring that. Ray Scott's going
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  Speaker 2: to have Dixon seats that you can get for ten dollars.
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  Speaker 2: So we really wanted to have this so that we
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  Speaker 2: are adding a little more value for Dixon residents. And
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  Speaker 2: I'm hoping that we can find other ways to also
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  Speaker 2: do that. We are also adding I know last time
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  Speaker 2: we talked, we talked about how the Triple Espresso Show
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  Speaker 2: had to postpone their season, so we're looking at dates
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  Speaker 2: to bring that back in twenty twenty seven. We have
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  Speaker 2: found a show that we are going to be replacing
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  Speaker 2: that with On the fourteenth, for Valentine's Day, we are
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  Speaker 2: bringing in the Grand Shanghai Circus. They are actually an
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  Speaker 2: act that we've had here previously. I think the last
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  Speaker 2: name they were here was in twenty twenty two. They're
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  Speaker 2: a really really cool show.
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  Speaker 1: They do cool.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they do a lot. They do a lot of
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  Speaker 2: the classic Shanghai circus routines with like the stacking chairs,
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  Speaker 2: plate balancing, they do ribbon acrobatics, tons, tons of really
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  Speaker 2: cool stuff. So it's a really fun show and I'm
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  Speaker 2: excited to be bringing them back this year.
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  Speaker 1: That's awesome. I mean, you don't got to be a
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  Speaker 1: kid to appreciate. Yeah, definitely that though. That's a great
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  Speaker 1: That's a great one to bring your kids too. I've
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  Speaker 1: never seen a shing I Circus before. I'm familiar with
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  Speaker 1: some of those acts you're talking about, so that would
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  Speaker 1: be really cool to stall.
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  Speaker 2: If you've got a date on Valentine's Day, you can
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  Speaker 2: come to the Dixon Theater and via Grand.
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  Speaker 1: Time, Honey, there we go. You also wanted to highlight
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  Speaker 1: some other.
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  Speaker 2: Shows, Yeah, and just wanted to highlight some of the
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  Speaker 2: other things we have coming up in this season. Obviously,
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  Speaker 2: the biggest show that we have coming in this season
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  Speaker 2: is Tony Danza in April. That's going to be a
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  Speaker 2: really big show for us. It's a really big get
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  Speaker 2: for us to have Tony Danzel coming into Dixon, so
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  Speaker 2: we're really excited to have him coming in. But then
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  Speaker 2: a little bit later in the year in May, we
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  Speaker 2: have another show. They are a Latin music band called
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  Speaker 2: Costas Collectibo. They are super fun. They were actually recommended
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  Speaker 2: to us by the owners of Salamandro's here and Dixon.
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  Speaker 2: They've actually performed there a couple times for some special events.
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  Speaker 2: So we're excited to have them coming out to the
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  Speaker 2: Dixon Theater to do their kind of bringing out their
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  Speaker 2: full their full band. I think they have thirteen members
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  Speaker 2: in their band, so they're bringing the full band out
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  Speaker 2: to perform at the Dixon. It's gonna be a ton
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  Speaker 2: of fun. And then later in the month we have
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  Speaker 2: clik clekmu cows that type live based off of the book.
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  Speaker 2: If you have kids and they've read the book, the
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  Speaker 2: book is hilarious. It's a really funny book and it's amazing.
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  Speaker 2: Now I'm going to read it right. So when I
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  Speaker 2: saw that there was a live show. I was like,
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  Speaker 2: we must get that children's show. We have to get it.
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  Speaker 2: It's going to be great. I don't know anything about it,
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  Speaker 2: but I read the book once a week, so we
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  Speaker 2: have to That's awesome.
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  Speaker 1: No, that'll be a super cool one.
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  Speaker 2: And then to end the month, we have Bad Moms
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  Speaker 2: of Comedy. They are a stand up comedy troop out
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  Speaker 2: of Chicago. They're going to be coming in on that
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  Speaker 2: last Friday of the month and doing some of their
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  Speaker 2: stand up routines that are really great. They've been great
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  Speaker 2: to work with, and they kind of have a rotating
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  Speaker 2: list of comedians that they work with, so we actually
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  Speaker 2: don't know which comedians are actually going to be there
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  Speaker 2: that night, but it's going to be a really fun
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  Speaker 2: night and you're gonna have a ton of laughs. And
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  Speaker 2: then to end the night that month, we are going
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  Speaker 2: to have what's her name, the Green Day Tribute. So
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  Speaker 2: I'm really I'm really excited that we got that one
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  Speaker 2: locked in, especially now with Green Day confirmed that they're
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  Speaker 2: going to be doing the opening ceremony for the Super Bowl,
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  Speaker 2: so we're hoping to get that pushed out and be like,
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  Speaker 2: you can also come see a tribute at the Dixon.
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  Speaker 1: I already filled the nostalgia coming in through Man the
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  Speaker 1: freaking high scho Mornings, Letting Green Day rip on the On.
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  Speaker 1: Oh Man, that's.
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  Speaker 2: Cool, one hundred percent. I'm excited for that one. It's
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  Speaker 2: gonna be a really good show.
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  Speaker 1: Anything else you wanted to highlight this week?
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  Speaker 2: I think that's everything that I wanted to highlight. We've
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  Speaker 2: got a ton of shows obviously coming up outside of
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  Speaker 2: the ones that I've mentioned. If you want specific dates
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  Speaker 2: or times or ticket prices, you can go to Dixontheater
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  Speaker 2: dot com. We'll have all of that available and you'll
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  Speaker 2: also be able to learn more about the encore campaign
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  Speaker 2: there and kind of what the different tiers of donating are,
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  Speaker 2: what the benefits of donating at different levels are, and
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  Speaker 2: how that money will go towards supporting the Dixon Theater.
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  Speaker 1: Well, there you go, the Dixon. You guys have got
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  Speaker 1: something for everybody coming up. Dixon residents, you have even
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  Speaker 1: more reason with those Dixon seats. Again, you're not going
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  Speaker 1: to get a night of entertainment for ten to twenty bucks.
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  Speaker 1: You're just not. So I'm really excited to see what
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  Speaker 1: you guys got going out for the rest of the
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  Speaker 1: season for you to come back in the booth and
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  Speaker 1: tell us more.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to come back, Spencer.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing all this this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Sir yep, thank you.