We Need Some Summer Loving

The discussion in the entertainment blogosphere and throughout the industry is how slow ticket sales are this summer. This is pretty scary since the first day of summer was just the other day. Why are ticket sales so slow?

My personal opinion is because our industry has not learned a thing over the past year.  Last year during the heart of the recession when we couldn’t sell tickets even when we gave them away.  I thought that all the high powered industry talent would finally wake up and listen to the customers.  Our customers want to be entertained. They want a memorable good experience.  They don’t want to spend their life savings to have this. Why should they?

When I was a teen, I looked forward to the summer concert season.  I couldn’t wait for the “special event” schedule to come out for the amphitheatre near my home.  My whole summer was planned around the concerts. It was part of my good summer experience.  While I see venues trying to market a “concert series”, I don’t see the customers buying it. That good ole summertime vibe just isn’t there.

Going to see summer concerts should be like going to the amusement parks.  The Six Flags of the world offer season passes.  They bank on getting customers to come to the park more than once.  Summer concert venues should be doing the same.  Why can’t we make these venues a place we want and can afford to spend several hot summer nights?

We are not going to achieve this when we blow the customer’s budget for one show.  Do you really think charging $40 per car to park is customer friendly?  I just heard about an event where it cost more to park your car then buy the ticket.  Do you really think charging $9.00 for a beer is going to keep customers coming to your venue? 

Summertime is when we try to kick back a little.  Think about your good summer experiences and bring them back to our customers.

What Does Your Gut Say?

At the conference I mentioned that we tend to follow technology and trends too closely.  As the saying goes “there are more than one way to skin a cat”.

Today, we all like to jump on the marketing bandwagon.  I am as guilty of this as anyone.  We like the shiny new toys of technology or we gravitate to the latest marketing trend because “everyone” is doing it.  But does it really work for you?

Most media buying today is done with computer programs.  The media buyer inputs the info and the computer tells him/her what programming to buy.  Where is the human factor in this?  Many of us live in the city that we are buying media in.  Don’t you have a personal feel for what might work for your product?  Of course you do because you are a marketer. 

Everyone jumped off the newspaper bandwagon 2 years ago.  Everyone I talked with said newspaper advertising doesn’t work.  “No one is reading newspapers”. Do you really believe this should be a blanket statement?  If this was true all newspapers would be out of business.  Yet, I still lots of ads in newspapers everyday.  When you stopped buying print, did your ticket sales change?  Did you do something to test the theory that print doesn’t work?

As event & entertainment marketers, we have lots of data to look at.  We have lots of research to conduct.  We have lots of people giving us input and suggestions.  All of this is good stuff.  But don’t forget to listen to your gut.  You know your product.  You know your market.  You know your customers.

Post Conference Thoughts

It was a whirlwind trip to Chicago for the Event & Arena Marketing Conference last week.  If the conference didn’t create its own excitement, being ground zero for the Stanley Cup celebrations brought it over the top.

I really enjoyed Ross Bernstein’s keynote presentation on the late Herb Brooks.  Ross seemed to bring the full spirit of the 1980 Olympic hockey coach to the conference.  After hearing Ross’s speech, you can really understand how “Herbie” was able to take average college hockey players and turn them into Olympic champions.

I attended the session on viral marketing.  Wanted to hear how it is evolving or should I say “going viral”.  The session was very interesting.  When many people think viral, they think YouTube.  But viral marketing is way more than that.  Marketing on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and FourSquare is viral marketing too.  Have your Facebook fans create an “event” for your show.  Have each of them invite all of their friends to the event.  This will spread the word to thousands very quickly.

Since I have been in this business for 25 years, I don’t get overly impressed with the type of family shows that tour today.  However, I think Walking with Dinosaurs is pretty cool.  They had a Baby T at their sponsored luncheon.  Now that is what I call a really great advance costume.  Baby T is the size of an actual baby t-rex. I was also impressed with how Cirque du Soleil has grown over the past 20 years.  The brand is now worldwide with 20 plus shows and continues to grow every year. 

I was part of a panel discussion on marketing & advertising basics.  The panel took an interesting twist. Instead of talking about how to buy media or what are the right GRP’s, we discussed actually understanding our customers.  You can’t buy media if you truly don’t know your customer.  It is more than just reading the stats.  You need to ask the customer, listen to the customer, and follow through for the customer.

EAMC – Mind Your Elders

The participants of the Event & Arena Marketing Conference were in the presence of legends yesterday. 

The first full day of the conference should have put awe in all that were sitting in the general session room.  As per tradition honors were given out.  This includes the GiGi award and new inductees to the Arena Marketing Hall of Fame.  The board got it right! 

The GiGi award named after GiGi Pilhofer was given to Larry Rubin.  Larry is considered to be one of the best arena PR people ever!  He is one of those rare people who “get it”. 

The Hall of Fame inductees included Linda Deckard, Rich Krezwick, Lynn Plage, Linc Cavalieri, and Bob Reed.  The “wow” moment came when we found out the contributions that 92 year old Linc has done for the arena business.  He invented both the glass around the hockey rink dashers and box suites.  Both were created from necessity.  The glass was because fans were losing teeth when the puck would fly through the chicken wire fence.  The box suites, because his boss (the owner of the Red Wings) was sitting near the fans and getting shit when the team was losing. Today, those suites pay for new buildings.

I know I am old when a kid of one of my early bosses is now attending the conference.  Ian Adler is an Assistant Marketing Manager with Comcast-Spectacor in Philly.  His dad Richard Adler was not only one of my bosses at Ringling Bros., he was President of the Atlanta Knights hockey team when I was there. The last time I saw Ian he was 12.

WTF Bad Business?

At the end of the conference day yesterday Jim Delaney and I walked over to the official Blackhawks store in the heart of downtown Chicago to buy some championship merch for our kids.  We got to the store at 6:30 PM.  The store closed at 6:00 PM.  Why wouldn’t this store stay open late the day after they won the Stanley Cup? The downtown area was packed with people.  We went across the street to another sports store.  They were jamed with people buying Blackhawks shirts.  The store was going through boxes of shirts.  Jim and I shook our heads and said someone was not thinking.

Great Night In Chicago

Yesterday I made it to Chicago for the 30th annual Event & Arena Marketing Conference.  It literally took planes, trains, and automobiles to get here.

What a day to come to Chicago.  Wednesday night was the night the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup.  Everything around this town Wednesday was Blackhawks.  Rush hour even started earlier than normal so everyone could get home or to a bar to watch the game.  At the opening party at Navy Pier they kept us updated with the DJ giving the scores.

After they won the game I fell asleep only to be woken up a few minutes later by the sounds of cheering in the streets and horns blowing.  I am staying on the 36th floor of the hotel.  Think how loud the noise in the streets was. The cheering in the streets went on for hours.  It is always exciting to be in a town when a pro team wins a championship. 

Yesterday at the conference I ran into many of the veteran arena marketers. I was excited to hook up with Alex Hodges.  Alex is the COO of Nederlander Concerts.  I have not seen Alex since my days in Atlanta when I was handling the marketing at Lakewood Amphitheatre. It’s been over 10 years! He has not changed a bit. 

Today is the first full day of the conference.  As in the past two years, I plan to take lots of notes and will give you the highlights and updates.

Back To The Basics

This week I will be attending the 30th annual Event & Arena Marketing Conference in Chicago.  While at the conference I will be part of a panel on marketing and advertising basics.  This discussion should be great for people new to the industry and even better for industry veterans.

The panel is made up of entertainment marketers currently from different worlds but they all started in live event marketing.  The panel also includes: Hank Salemi – Six Flags, Jamie Macvicar – Author of Advance Man, Amy Dubinsky – Feld Entertainment, and Bob Collins – long time Live Event Marketing Guru and all around great guy!

It’s fantastic that the conference is offering this panel discussion.  Anyone who reads this blog knows that I truly believe we can never forget the basics while we invent new and exciting marketing and advertising programs. I am not a golfer but I understand why golfers always need to practice the basics.  You have to keep your basic skills sharp if you want to advance in the game.

Many of us get caught up in new technology or techniques. None of these are any good if you don’t keep up with the basics.  When you buy media do you make your decisions based just on what the computer tells you?  I know many media buyers that do.  A computer just works with stats.  These stats don’t tell the whole story.  Do you pass on print media these days?  Do you do this because everyone tells you newspapers don’t work?  Are you sure this is true? Have you tested this theory?  Do you still write a marketing plan with some thought in it?  Do you follow the plan?

Go back to the marketing driving range and get rid of the basic bad habits.  See you at the conference!

We Are All Critics – Hear Us Roar!

Today’s web 2.0 has offered up a great marketing opportunity and a possible marketing nightmare at the same time.  Our customers can give their two cents.  What are you doing with this?

Ten years ago the internet was very one sided.  Companies and brands put up a website to market their product.  Today, we can actually participate in two-way communication.  We can praise something when it’s great.  We can complain when something is not great.  We can have an actual dialogue.

As marketers we need to jump all over this.  A big reason we don’t like two-way communication is because we think we can’t control the message.  We are afraid of “negative”.  We need to get over the fear because two-way communication on the net is not going away.  If we sit back and do nothing, then the negative boo birds are going to rule the roost.

For many years we have run advertising that included customer testimonials.  We all know they work.  Today’s internet gives us the opportunity to take it to the next level.  NEWS FLASH:  Your customers are googling you!  What are they reading about you?  We should be encouraging our customers to give testimonials.  Have them offer real-time feedback on Facebook and Twitter.  Give them an opportunity to post comments on your website.  There are websites that offer customer feedback such as Yelp. Yes, you will get some negative feedback.  However, if you have a great product your loyal customers will take care of you.  Plus, I believe a little negative is good.  It gives you real customer feedback to fix any issues. It also makes your overall customer comments believable.

Today’s internet had made everyone a critic.  We don’t need to wait for the review to come out in the newspaper after the event.  Plus, we should really be listening to our customers not a newspaper reviewer.

We can’t control today’s internet but we have the marketing know-all to make it work for us!