Stratford Festival Attendance Planner 2012

Attendance Planner 2012

This planner searches through the Stratford Festival calendar to find the plays you want to see, within time periods that are convenient for you.

For those in a hurry

To go directly to the Planner without any unnecessary delay click here.

About the Stratford Festival Planner

How does it help me? Planning to attend the festival can be complicated because there are generally several plays to see in a short time.

In the past, you would make a list of performances to see and then go looking for specific instances of the desired performances, such that they span a convenient period of time.

This planner accepts information about the shows you want to attend, when you want to attend them, and other constraints. Then it does a lot of computation looking through the Festival schedule to find attendance plans that meet all your requirements.

To use the planner select all the performances and events you want to see, then set the various times and options. If you are not sure exactly what a particular item is for, click on the

icon next to it which will take you to a description of that item. When all the information is correct, click on the SUBMIT button; attendance plans which meet your requirements will be found and displayed.

Reading the examples below will help you plan, or go to the planner.

Example One

Assume you want to see all 10 plays that are being presented in 2012 at the Festival, Avon and Tom Patterson theatres, and you want to do so in exactly five days.

Is this even possible?

It is, but only five times during the season, the first time starting on July 31. Here's how you figure it out with the planner.

Select all available events at the three theatres, set the earliest and latest dates to span the entire season. Specify "5" as the maximum number of days for your visit and, since you are going to have to see two plays per day, set "5" as the maximum number of two-event days.

Example Two

You are a Shakespeare fan who lives a four hour drive from Stratford. You have three days, and would like to see the three plays by Shakespeare along with Elektra.

Is it possible to see all these plays in a three day trip, including driving to Stratford on the first day and returning home on the third day?

Yes, but only twice during the season, both in mid August.

How to find this with the Planner? Select "Much Ado About Nothing", "Henry V", "Cymbeline" and "Elektra". Set earliest and latest dates to span the entire season, set "3" as the maximum number of days for your visit, set "1" as the maximum number of two-day events.

Since you want to drive to, and from, Stratford on the first and last day of your trip, request no afternoon events on the first day and no evening events on the last day. The Planner finds just two results, starting on August 15th and 16th.

Example Three

As a somewhat more realistic example assume you are a student and would like to see "Henry V" and "42nd Street". Is it possible to see these on one day and have them both at student prices?

The answer is that no, there is no instance during the season when you can attend both these plays on one day at student prices. However, if you can stay for two days then there are exactly two instances during the season when these events are presented on successive days at student prices.

How to do this with the Planner? Select "Henry V" and "42nd Street", set earliest and latest dates to span the entire season, specify "1" as the maximum number of days for your visit, specify "1" as the maximum number of two-event days, indicate that you are eligible for the student discount and select sorting by cost-index. The planner returns 10 attendance plans but none of them have both performances at student prices. Close the RESULTS page, change maximum number of days for your visit from "1" to "2" and try again. This time the Planner finds 43 attendance plans and the first two attendance plans presented, and they are presented first because you asked for sorting by cost-index, are ones where both plays are at student prices.

Thus the planner helps you easily find combinations that would be very time consuming to find if you had to do the searching by hand.

Free Software Rocks

This planner was developed using Linux and other Free/Open Source software.