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Back to Facility Manager
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By Lynda Reinhart we’ve all received that dreaded call: “I wanna do a concert. How much will it cost to do it at your building?” For people who don’t understand the business, it seems like such an easy prospect; the secret to success and a guaranteed moneymaker. How hard can it be? Ninety-five percent of the time, when individuals see how much money they’ve got to come up with just to get the ball rolling, they don’t call back; but what happens when they do? As painful as it can be to spin your wheels for no return, don’t we have an obligation to help these young people as well? As university employees, we work in centers of education. Our various institutions exist for the sole purpose of teaching. Where else are these kids going to learn how to break in to the business and learn the right way to produce an event if we aren’t willing to show them the ropes? Yet how much can we teach them without putting our facilities at risk? When does teaching someone that truly believes they have a plan for success, who also (shockingly) has the financial means to cover the costs, just become bad business? Lesson 1: Understanding the Financials I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll provide a cost estimate for anyone. Trying to ascertain the information I need to provide a remotely accurate estimate usually gives me a pretty good idea whether they have any idea what they’re getting themselves into. Have they thought about ticket prices? How long is the show going to last? Do they have an idea of expected attendance, based on artist history (not just, “How many seats do you have because I know it will sell out?”)? Do they even have a particular artist in mind or better yet, have they started conversations with an artist? Do they know what a rider is and what they should expect to find in it? If they don’t have answers to these basic questions, there’s a good chance that this show is going nowhere; but I still give them an estimate. Now, it’s usually an over-inflated, ridiculously expensive estimate, but I give them one. Why? Well, it will do one of three things. • It will scare off the ones that truly have no concept and aren’t willing to do the necessary work to pull it off. • It will get the person thinking and possibly do the research they should have done before calling the venue. • My phone will ring and I’ll spend the next 45 minutes explaining why each line item may or may not be necessary, and what needs to happen if they want to change any of the dollar figures, and I’ll usually end up having some pretty good dialogue about how the concert industry works and what they need to understand before jumping off this cliff. In the first two scenarios, the individuals, whether they do the show or not, have learned something that they wouldn’t have otherwise. Of course, there’s also the dreaded fourth option: The person calls back and wants to move on to the next step without questioning the costs. Lesson 2: Understanding the Reservation Process Now, let me tell you, scenario four is where I get scared. Either these people really have no clue, they’re painfully optimistic or worse, both. In any case, I’ve also gotten to the point that I’ll hold an open date for anyone as well — with the clear understanding that while I’m holding the date, I’m not guaranteeing they can have the date. The would-be promoter has to meet all requirements before I’ll commit to it, and if someone else wants the date before they’re ready and able to contract, they’ll lose it. Having clear reservation requirements is key to keeping yourself (and the client) out of hot water. Step one is references — what have they done before, where have they done it, could they pay their bills, and what did the venue think of working with them? Step two is an artist line up. We have some pretty stringent guidelines for the types of show and level of risk our university is willing to take, as I’m sure many of you do as well, so ensuring that the planned acts fall into these guidelines is critical. Step three is a letter of intent from the artist or agent the promoter is working with; I want to know that the artist they’ve proposed will commit to the show if I commit the  venue. Word of warning: Make sure you’re very clear
that this isn’t the green flag to sign an artist’s contract. You don’t want
that misunderstanding to come back to haunt you. I’ll never forget the sound of shear panic coming through the phone when this whole process started with a call from a guy who contracted an artist before contacting us to secure the date. He checked our Web site and saw we didn’t have anything listed on a particular date, but little did he realize that the athletic schedule hadn’t been published yet and we had a game on the date he had committed to. He certainly learned something, but that’s a different story. Lesson 3: Understanding the Downside and Making the Hard Decisions At this point, our young student understands and accepts the costs, seems to have the financial backing and the ability to meet a strict deposit schedule, has an artist commitment that meets the guidelines, checks out as having pulled off a show before (although on a much smaller scale), and is still pushing forward. It seems at this point that there’s no reason not to contract the date, but is that really true? Out of fairness to the client and to the university, there needs to be a serious examination of the downside. Could failure or the actions of the promoter reflect badly on the school or the venue? If the answer is yes, then do you feel confident that you have the know-how to avoid these pitfalls and the promoter will follow your instructions and advice? If not, that’s when I have to get out. While I’m all for education, it cannot be at the expense of my institution. For example, we had reached this point with one group when I learned that their marketing strategy was to give free tickets to the student athletes in exchange for them hyping the show. Nope, that’s it, can’t do it — even though the kid said he wouldn’t issue the tickets when I explained the ramifications, I wasn’t comfortable that he wouldn’t do it anyway and wasn’t about to open up that NCAA can of worms. Finally, if there’s no real downside to the building, does the client have any chance of being successful? What will happen to them if the show doesn’t do what they think it will? I’ve found that this hypothetical conversation — and I say hypothetical because if you’ve reached this point with young, inexperienced promoters, they’re so convinced they’ve got a surefire winner that you won’t convince them otherwise — is the point of no return. At the end of this discussion, you’ve either got to let them try their wings and pray for the best (even though you’re pretty certain where they’re going to end up), or put your foot down and say, “You can’t handle the risk of failure, and I’m not going to set you up for this.” Lesson #4: Sometimes it Actually Works Out This is the lesson I learned a few months ago. I’ve been involved in only a handful of shows that we’ve allowed to move forward even though we thought it was a bad idea. Each time, the promoters walked away wishing they had listened to us, until the most recent engagement. While the show didn’t sell out as the promoter thought it would, it certainly did better than we all thought, and the kid actually made a little money. Did it go flawlessly? No. Did the promoter require a lot of handholding? Yes, it was a royal pain. Was it exciting to watch a young kid succeed at his first big show? Most definitely. His enthusiasm was contagious, and it was probably the best marketed show I’ve ever seen come through the building. While there are a lot of things we will do differently in the future, we’re looking forward to working with this kid again and hoping he’ll share some of his marketing tricks. While we have a lot of knowledge to share, we always have something to learn too. fm Lynda Reinhart is interim director of the Stephen C. O’Connell Center at the University of Florida in Gainesville. |
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2002-2007
International Association of Assembly Managers
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