CPR Promotional Check-Up - Feb 20, 2018

The Art & Joy of Concert Thievery

When I worked with Emmid in the Twin Cities, we had a General Manager

Who had something that he called the Dog Shit Theory Of Promotions. The theory, such as it was dictated that if there were more than 10 people together for any reason we should be there. Kind of like living in Minnesota when Spring arrives and the snow begins to melt. If you have a dog you are suddenly reminded of that as your backyard becomes a little minefield of piles. You have to step carefully because you might stop on one. Thus, the Dog Shit Theory of Promotions. We should be everywhere. We should be people should be afraid to step on us.

So if there are going to be 18,000 people together for a music event, Stewart would've had a stroke if we weren't there covering the ground. Wow, the feces metaphors are running strong today.

Concert thievery is very simple. You want to be the first thing that people see and you want to be the last thing that people see. When Blockbuster had an outdoor amphitheater near Phoenix, the first thing that you would see several miles before you got to the offramp were highway overpasses with our station banners on them. By the time you had exited the freeway and made the 2 mile journey across hardpacked desert to the entrance to the pavilion you had gone lines of campaign signs. We had literally puked the logo all over you. There was no question that this was our show, even if it wasn't. In fact sometimes the worst thing that can ever happen to a radio station is to become the official anything.

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At the end of the evening, leaving Blockbuster, one road funneled up to the county road where thousands of cars would make a big sweeping left turn heading towards the highway and back to civilization. And there right in front of you, across from the entrance to the pavilion was a long storm fence, and covering the storm fence were our banners. So the last thing you saw as you exited were a sea of our logos as your headlights swept over them. The first thing you saw and the last thing you saw.

Renda Broadcasting in Jacksonville once paid some insane amount of money, like $90,000, to be the official cluster for the 4th of July fireworks at the Gator Bowl. I happen to be in town at a Rhythm station that was just struggling to get people to notice it. So, along with people like Mickey Johnson and Mary K, we went out to the Bowl at about 930 at night. Two roads leaving the gator bowl came together almost like a Y that then led the hundred thousand people out. A hundred thousand people converging on one point and then merging together and driving away. So we parked the Hot 101.5 van right there and as thousands and thousands and thousands of cars inched past, the entire air staff was out there greeting them and handing them cold sodas and cold bottles of water (it may have been 10:30 at night, but it was till Fourth of July in Jacksonville) and thanking people for coming to our fireworks. Renda had had all of the rights that come with being the official station of a fireworks. Signage, crowd announcements, introductions: but as we thanked the masses as they left, they all drove home thinking that we had put on the fireworks. A little blue Mercedes with a little blonde woman who was the General Manager pulled up and I don't believe I had heard words like that anywhere other than an engineer's office at a radio station. She was pissed. We had stolen the fireworks from her.

There's a lot to concert ownership and that just doesn't involve being on site. There's so much more that we can do other than just running promos and doing some ticket giveaways. I've seen radio stations working and collaborating with their sister stations around the country to get a nightly call in from one of the DJs as the tour inchedcloser to their market. Every night a DJ somewhere out there with crowd noise and music in the background was painting this amazing picture of this tour that just in a short period of days or weeks was going to be here. In our city. That's one way to own it on the air leading up to the show.

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There is the obvious giving away trips to see the tour in other markets. Getting audio and drops from the artists. But were in radio. We don't have the visual so it's really an amazing opportunity for us to create this impression that we've been part of the two or since it rolled out of Sacramento five months ago.

When we launched wild 107 in San Francisco. I sat down and looked at the calendar and try to identify the next opportunity to announce our presence with authority. And it is hard to imagine as it was, it was Paula Abdul with TLC at the Oakland Coliseum. Kami L had been essentially with count without competition for six or seven years and had fallen into the rut of showing up with their master cruiser at about 530. Parking at the base of the ramp, playing music and as soon as everybody was inside of the venue taking off.

I approach this like Desert Storm. Inside the venue. JoJo Wright was doing a fake backstage broadcast. He was really just on his cell phone in the mezzanine. But in the background you could hear the thump thump thump of a sound check and forklifts and feedback in all of the sounds associated with a concert. If you have tickets to a concert you don't suddenly remember that at five o'clock. Know your thinking about it all day long and with Joe Joe we did a series of backstage broadcast that created this impression that where we were where people expected us to be which was backstage. All day long. It was amazing theater as he walked around the venue and snuck into dressing rooms and talk to roadies and bus drivers and wardrobe people all of whom were played by people from the radio station. Though at the Janet Jackson concert. He and I were standing outside near the loading dock and a woman with the big neck full of laminate's walking a dog can walk, strolling past us. I pointed pointed at her and told him there's gotta be a story there and there was it was Janet Jackson's freaking dog walker. She travels the world walking Janet's dog. JoJo got her on the air and it was way way way more interesting than the Kami L broadcast that started four hours later. That sounded like a remote from a high V.

In the case of kiss in Boise. They used an account executive to be Justin Bieber's tutor as she sat down and talk to the DJ about Justin's curriculum and what he was doing every day in terms of studies and how they would teleconference with schoolboard back in Canada to make sure that he was achieving all of his goals while he was on. I'm to her.
Street tumors went up to various. Set times during the show inflated the balls tied them often bounced them out to the crowd. It seemed like every 5 to 10 minutes. One of these balls would go bouncing around the calla Coliseum as people screamed. But the highlight was when the can M EL program director who was seated down in about row three grabbed one of these put it on the floor and dramatically smashed it. And 15,000 people booed him

Insert into the Paula Abdul story. While JoJo was broadcasting inside we had groups of street tumors placed in all of the ramps that would lead up to the doors into the Coliseum with people wearing our shirts greeting people and injured welcoming to wild 107's presentation of Paula Abdul. We had launched with such ferocity that the buzz on it had really penetrated the audience. In a nice kind of penetration. If you love the format you are probably aware that we exist. Now we put a face on it. In the parking lot. We had a limousine cruising the Rose with Renée Taylor sitting on the roof with a megaphone making noise and getting noticed. I'd also snuck in 20 latex.

The first thing you should do is go down and do a schematic of the market of the venue. The first hour when we're on site anywhere is usually spent walking around trying to find places where we can hang banners. They're going to be places that you're going to go to over and over again. It could be a car dealership. It could be a shopping mall. It could be a nightclub. And often it will be a concert venue. Using the Oakland Coliseum as an example we went out and mapped every possible route into the arena and where we would need to put banners. It included the BART station. It included the exits off 880. It included a lumber yard that was strategically placed so that 10,000 cars would roll past it. As they entered the Oakland Coliseum parking lot. We went over, introduced ourselves to the manager of the lumberyard and made sure that he got hooked up with movie tickets and other swag every time that there was a concert and boom. His giant wooden fence. His massive wooden fence was covered in our banners for every show.

One of the most amazing ass kicking this that I've seen in recent history was at a Rihanna show in Ottawa when hot 89.9 so effectively owned the show that the competition pulled up and left at 630p.m.

The part the first part of this perfect storm. The first part of this perfect storm that led to a historic ass kicking was at the competition. The other CHR in town had been allotted space on the Plaza for their vehicle and canopy. Getting the prime space next to the door can sometimes be the worst thing that can happen to you because you neglect to think outside the Plaza

it was coincidently the first day of training for the new Street team, so everything started at 10 a.m. at the radio station with 25 bright, eager, and much younger than me, promo people where we did a two hour course in Street school

the promotion director put a map of Scotia Bank Place and the surrounding neighborhood up on the big screen and we began to pencil in all of the banner body and vehicle placement.

He estimated that about 75% of the people attending the show would be coming up the highway from the city so the first banner was put on a pedestrian raw walkway over the freeway a mile or two from the exit.

At the top of the exit following a stoplight. People would be directed to take a left and follow a route of about a mile as the West and around the venue. So at the top of the ramp, we bantered a chain-link fence that stared directly in the face of everybody exiting off the freeway.

This kind of J-shaped loop that one around the north of the venue of didn't offer many mentoring opportunities except for of light poles which were then all bantered.

The last stoplight before getting to the venue was kitty corner from a car dealership. Once you made it past the stop light. You then pulled right into a parking lot so at the stoplight on the grass. We parked a station vehicle into street tumors holding Rihanna signs stood and danced on top of the van waving at cars as they approach the show.

Having parked your car. You then used a pedestrian crosswalk to get to Scotia Bank Place property. Immediately, on the other side of the crosswalk was a station canopy with sound system and the air staff bisecting the walkway so that about 12,000 people would have to walk through them to get to the Plaza and as people walked by. They greeted them introduce themselves and welcome them to our show.

So actually on the Plaza was the competition with their van enterprise will. By the time people had reached the Plaza. We had already made a dramatic impression on them with sound signs and personal greetings.

Concert promoters will often tell you where you can put your vehicles and where you can put your canopies and how loud you can make your sound but they can't tell you where you can stand so on the Plaza was the biggest morning show in town. Jenny Josie Mohler and Rush ready to greet everybody as they arrived. The promotion director with a bullhorn was summoning everyone over to stand in line and get their photo taken with the morning show. Which they did. In droves. It's all psychology, if I've never seen a radio station before and I met an event and you see one station that has a canopy and a prize wheel and two people standing there and another radio station with for your talent and long long long lines of people waiting to meet them. Who do I want to be associated with. You want to be with who is popular. It's human nature.

We had figured out or guessed that about 25% of the people or 4000 people would be coming up from the south on city streets and would park in a parking lot to the south of the venue and then walk straight up to the Plaza. So across the Plaza bracketing it were high school cheerleaders and station shirts doing pyramids, throwing themselves in the air, holding signs and greeting the stragglers who came in from the south. You couldn't get on the Plaza without either going through a line of the cheerleaders or back near the crosswalk. The remaining air staff.

At about 630. The other radio station packed up and left. I almost felt sorry for them.

This is where most radio stations will then screw up and leave. Why would you do that because in a couple of hours. You'll have thousands and thousands and thousands of giddy happy, possibly drunk people in great moods, having enjoyed your show, leaving the venue. This is your last chance to seal the deal.

The bodies on the Plaza except for the morning show who had to leave early Allstate in place the vehicle across from the car dealer was relocated to the on ramp to the freeway where music was blared at the departing cars and the promo staff yelled thanks for coming to our show as everybody crept past.

How often have you done a concert where people have come up and thank you for bringing the artist's town. Whoot there it is. End of story.

If we return to the Minnesota fishing metaphor, we want to go looking for the fish and not just sit and hope for the fish to find us. That's how you get skunked. It's very much like the Minnesota State fair, where you have 1.3 million people over 10 days to send on an event set right in the heart of the Twin Cities. Every station in the market has their own booth space. There and many of had the same space for years if not decades. While it would be nice to sit at the corner of Judson at the city's 97 booth and wait for people to stroll by. What if they enter through the snowing gate and don't approach machinery Hill. What if they come in through the machinery Hill gate. So what cities 97 has done is put street tumors on roller blades roving the grounds spritzing hot people with bottles of cold water because the state fair always happens in the hottest time of the year.

A really good example of that would be a Jimmy Buffett concert in Jacksonville that I went to in 2011. In Jacksonville, a Jimmy Buffett concert is an all format show and everybody and every station was on hand. I took a cab down from my hotel and had it drop me off about three blocks away. I feet had barely touched the ground before two young women from Cox came running up to hand me Cousy's. I'd walked maybe another hundred feet and they'd staked out a street corner. And then they'd strict out the street corner down the block. They had a golf cart roaming the numerous parking lot parties because at a Jimmy Buffett concert that's for you go. You go to the parking lots. And at the very last minute you all Russian side. Cox even had a parking deck that overlooked the venue bantered and directly across from the main gate. The main door. They had an almost carnival set up. My client I heart communications was tucked back in a beer garden to the left of the main door. There was nobody there because they're all out of the parking lot parties and at about 725, 15,000 people came running past to go inside. But again, we are tucked back out of sight, and even John Walsh would not of been up to find us.

So what do you do when you're on site. What do you do with your little allotted space. First you're going to get a list of demands about things that you are not allowed to do great are always going to be demands. In fact, when Justin Timberlake did a stadium. Two were in 2012. The pages there were 52 pages of demands. If I remember correctly. And unfortunately, most radio stations just took that as it was set up in their little tent on the Plaza and hid their and behaved..

Carlos Pedraza was CBS in San Francisco is clearly missing his true vocation which would be to be a lawyer. He took the 52 pages and shot full of holes looking for, not things that they told him he couldn't do, but things that they didn't say that he couldn't do. Consequently, for the Safeco field concert in downtown San Francisco. Carlos had everything covered from the exits from the Bay Bridge from the train station from every way. The people may have come. The lesson. They can tell you what to do on site but they can't tell you what you can do across the street.

So you have your little 10' x 10' square on the concrete. What are you gonna do with it. Your goal is to build a crowd because crowds draw crowds. Possibly the finest example of that would be at a Taylor Swift show that I heart in DC and Baltimore rat. They had a game plan of activity with their stage so that nothing so that something was always happening. There was music there were contests there were games, there was always something happening.

Look at the crowd in front of theirs set up and then look at the crowd at the other radio stations booths. Who would you want to be.

In 2018. Don't get caught up in. We need to give stuff to people. What people want is they want an opportunity to take photos. That's all you need to deliver. So the smart stations create photo setups that are specific to each show.

Gino Reyes with power 96, five in Miami is perhaps one of the best people at doing this. He should actually be working in Hollywood as a set designer. He creates a different set up for every show.

And then you have the artist cut outs to get your photo taken with. Okay, that's cool. But I went to a Taylor Swift show in Fargo were there were seven radio stations in six of them had the same Taylor Swift cut out. And by the way, it was about three quarters real size. So you are getting your photo taken with many Taylor. Why 94 actually went out and found if you can believe it. A blonde woman in the state of North Dakota, who looked maybe just a little bit like Taylor Swift. They put a hat and some sunglasses on her braided her around and Boehm instant crowd. And TV stations wanted to get her as their obligatory shot from the show. Because some of these concerts are going to get TV coverage and the nicest thing you could do for Bob the cameraman from Channel 6 is to give him a great image to shoot. A Taylor Swift look-alike strolling around will pull that off.

Stealing an event like a concert gives you a rush that nothing short of heroin can match. It feels amazing. You want to replicate it. You want to go back and do it again and again and again because it feels so great. And I think that there are a lot of people who have never gone back to the station after concert and felt like wow we just killed them. Dad.

In 1999 wild 98 seven in Tampa stole Gasparilla from Clear Channel Communications. The official media partner and who had spent an ungodly amount of money for that title. It was like putting the 1993 Chicago Bulls up against a seventh grade Ascot ball team. It was horrible. It was ugly. And wow it was fun. Afterwards we went to Bennigan's and Orlando Davis put $1400 and booze on his personal credit card. I called Jerry Clifton who was in Hawaii and with people screaming and yelling and drinks clinking in the background. I told him that I don't think I'll ever be in the locker room after winning a Super Bowl, but man this is about as close as it's going to get.

If you can go out and effectively market yourself to thousands and thousands and thousands of people and have the bonus pay off of having one of the greatest nights of your professional career. Well, you can't do that in Russia.