Small Hall Managers Meeting

Moderator: Bob Rossi, Ruth Eckerd Hall
Lynne Bengtson, Historic Theatre Group
Tom Consolo, azoffmusic management
Jason Ferguson, Seattle Theatre Group
Ralph Marchetta, Dodge Theatre
Clint Mitchell, William Morris Agency
Edgar Neiss, Fox Theatre Atlanta

The reality of the concert industry is that there are more artists who can sell 2,000 tickets than 20,000 tickets, and many acts who once played arenas are increasingly discovering that playing small halls is the best way to extend their career.

And that’s good news for the venues, Ruth Eckerd Hall’s Bob Rossi said.

“We’re seeing more and more artists we’ve never seen before come into our buildings,” he told the panel. “More of the showcase artists and superstar acts are coming to play theatres.

“A lot of artists are coming in to do multiple nights at the theatres as opposed to doing the arena or amphitheatre. But there are still artists who think of that as a downslide and we’re trying to do everything we can to change that, which is why we’ve assembled agents and managers on the panel to find out what they’re thinking. Is it really stepping down a notch?”

Tom Consolo, a manager at azoffmusic management, said theatres serve his clients in numerous ways.

“They serve the artist on the way up, and they serve the artist on the way down, though we don’t like to think of it as down; we like to think about it in terms of perception,” he said. “The performing arts theatres are fun to play. I find that most of our artists enjoy the intimacy of the venue and the closeness with the fans.

“That’s why I say it’s not a step down. It’s just a situation where we go in and play a show, there’s going to be a lot of people there, and it’s going to be a success. It’s all about the level of the artist and finding the right house for that evening. In general, we love to do it.”

Fox Theatre Atlanta’s Edgar Neiss reiterated that statement.

“It’s not about artists going up or coming down in their career. I think it’s the right audience in the right hall for the right kind of experience that the audience wants to have and the artist wants to have.”

Further, he pointed out, there are huge booking differences between 4,000- to 6,000-capacity halls and 1,500- to 2,000-capacity halls, explaining that Josh Groban only played the larger rooms on his last tour.

But, Rossi said, Florida doesn’t have many, if any, 4,000-capacity halls, so Groban ended up playing multiples at the smaller venues.

“His manager isn’t going to skip Florida because there’s not a 4,000 seater to play there, and we don’t want to play a cut-down arena his first time out,” he said. “You don’t want people thinking Budweiser when they’re leaving the Josh Groban show.

“Let’s face facts: People are not leaving our halls, regardless of whether they’re going to Riverdance or Bernadette Peters or REO, saying ‘God, I couldn’t hear anything and I got beer spilled all over me.’

“They’re going to leave knowing their car is close by, the seat was comfortable, the acoustics were good, it was intimate and every seat in the house was great. We have to convince the manager and the artist that this is important to the patron and it has to get back to the artist.”

Dodge Theatre’s Ralph Marchetta has the distinct position of having booking responsibilities at both theatre and arena properties.

“One of the things that is incredibly appealing to me about the theatre side is that there seems to be more interaction between the artist and the audience,” he said. “It has a more special feel to it in a lot of ways. It just has a quality in that setting that makes it a treat for the act and for the people coming to the show.”

Along with the increase in “superstar” acts playing small halls is the rise of theatres making moves to become event presenters, potentially disrupting the promoter/theatre relationship.

Audience member John Valentino of Fantasma Productions, however, has other concerns.

“We at Fantasma have embraced the theatres unlike other promoters, I think, who have maybe alienated theatres,” he said. “We do a lot of theatre business, rent or co-promote, or whatever the agreement is. And it works well, but I do wonder where it’s going because a lot of theatres want to become presenters. Where are the new acts coming from?

“They need to develop their own acts as well. I think what promoter acts have done is increase the younger membership of the theatres; it’s the acts they want to see. As a promoter, we of course want our involvement at every level. We don’t always get it either. We don’t just want to turn them over to theatres and then eventually lose them.”

Lynne Bengtson of the Historic Theatre Group in Minneapolis said the principle owners of her company spotted the trend a while back and formed their own promoting company. That company, essentially an offshoot of the theatre, looks to develop new talent.

“We have a smaller venue in Minneapolis, the Woman’s Club Theatre, a 650-seat theatre, so they’re out there looking for new baby acts they can bring in and develop and work with in even smaller venues. The goal is to bring them up through the system, bringing them up through our theatres and they actually take shows into the arena too,” she said.

A major challenge facing small halls is the prevalence of casinos and their entertainment stages, Rossi said. The soft-ticket casino showrooms can be a good thing for artists, but are they a detriment to the halls these bands normally play?

“It’s a good thing from my perspective,” Consolo said, “because it gives us more options and more ways to keep bands viable longer on the road.”

He said casinos offer “a lot more routing dates,” but added he would probably not choose to put a band in a casino over a theatre it already has a relationship with.

Neiss had a different outlook, saying people who would see the bands at a casino are not the same people who would buy tickets to a theatre show.

But, Rossi pointed out, the casinos aren’t in Vegas as part of a destination trip; they’re in rural areas not far
from the standard market, meaning the shows could interfere with ticket sales if the bands come back through to play theatres after the casino.

“They’re keeping a lot of soft-ticket bands alive – Paul Revere & The Raiders. A lot of the fair and festival acts are getting a second life. ... But there’s a lot of artists who are hard-ticket acts that we find out are playing casinos.”

That situation is especially prevalent during the first year a casino is in business, Rossi explained, noting that new casinos pursue hard-ticket acts more aggressively during that time to bring in customers.

- Back to Conference Schedule -