TrendErtainment

The Economy "This too shall Pass"

I bought a subscription to the New York Times for my wife’s Birthday only to discover that I am a NYT junkie. If you read the past few Sunday Times perhaps you are like me and getting nervous that the economy is coming to an end and that soon we will be buying our clothing with stalks of corn instead of cash. I feel like I should be taking every penny I find in the streets of Inwood and putting it under my overstuffed mattress incase the price of my Barilla Pasta skyrockets through the roof due to some natural disaster or the price of the gas.

Week after week and article after article there is mention of how people are staying  at home. This pattern in the news leads me to the point out how the trends of gas prices and the economy bear a toll on us theatre folk.  According to a pole taken By Access America take a look at the following statistics…

--

Americans traveling for vacation this year:

33% of Americans are taking a vacation this year
65% of Americans are not planning on a vacation this year
2% Don’t know if they are taking a vacation

Out of those 33% who ARE planning a vacation:

48% will scale back their trip
52% won’t scale back their trip

--

Will gas prices prevent people from traveling to our shows from distances far away? If it does, will it keep the locals closer looking for something to do? How do we grab the limited people who are traveling and hook the locals looking to stay within their city boundaries?

For one thing, I will be looking to partner up with local businesses to make an “evening out”. Discounted prices to restaurants and attractions while still being able to see quality entertainment at the end of their trip. Make it easy for the audience member to come to our show. Make the night a mini-vacation.

We have the choice to look at our economic crunch (Thanks George) as an opportunity to get our neighbors to have dinner with us and our out of town guests to run home and tell everyone what they missed out on. Randy Buck, the COO of Troika once said to me, “This too will pass….”, and it will. So while we are in this financial freak out, lets take advantage of the relationships we can build with our audiences and make sure they bring their friends after we get back up on our feet.

The Man Behind Remarkable

Interested in the current trends in marketing ?

Meet the man and his blog which branded the term "Remarkable"... Seriously - Type the word "remarkable" into Google.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

HAVE YOU HUGGED A PRODUCER LATELY ?

.....And Ladies and Gentlemen we are back from our commercial break! I have neglected my musing on the TrendErtainment Blog, but I assure you I am not gone.

Things became a whirlwind over the past two weeks. Recently I have been bestowed the honor of becoming the General Manager for a multi-venue new show. (Stay tuned, more on what show in a future entry – I will give you a hint, a past entry on TrendErtainment got me the position.)

Now that my Jewish guilt is starting to pass that I have not said hello to you all in a while, I think I am ready to more on….

So….

Amid the multiple meetings and budget sessions over the past two weeks one thing keeps coming to my mind, “Numbers Don’t Lie”.

My wife, an avid Pistons Basketball fan always curses at the TV screen and yells “The Ball Don’t Lie!”, whenever she disagrees with the ref. The same thing is true about Producing Entertainment. The numbers just don’t lie. You can crunch them, squeeze them, pounce on them, stretch them to the limit, but facts are facts. You can entertain audiences until the laughter breaks their gut, but if you are answering to a bank account, chances are you have to say “No” to your creative team and managers more often than you would like.

As a Manager, Producer, Investor, you look at what is, and what can be, and determine what will be. Regardless to if you are working with a not-for-profit or a good ol’ LLC, there are limits.

Here is a formula from a recent projection document I created:

=IF(L58<0,0,(L58*$C$62))

For those of you who don’t understand excel, what that crazy formula above means is that by week 25 field L58 better be greater than 0, and C62 better be a number above 12. If they are the favorable numbers I wish they to be, we get to have a nice cast party, if they are not, then a bunch of people have to answer to unemployment, a bunch of investors will get indigestion, and I may very well have done my job incorrectly.

Having company managed and associate produced,  I have seen time and time again the actors and creative teams often not understand what the producer is trying to do. “Why are they trying to sabotage their production?”, they ask me. “why don’t they give just a little BIT more?”. In case you are not a member of management, please let me assure you that a little BIT of this and that times 7 performances and a cast of 23 adds up to be a whole lot more than you would ever imagine to the financial health of a company.

Next time you have a nasty thought about the one who authorizes the payroll, go up to them with understanding open arms and say “The numbers don’t lie….They just don’t” . Embrace your producer, hug them…

13

Breaking the mold of professional entertainment comes the new musical 13. Music and Lyrics by one of my favorite composers, Jason Robert Brown (Parade, Songs for a New World, The Last 5 Years).

What makes this show remarkable is that the entire cast and band is composed of teenagers.

Visit Jason Robert Brown's website to hear samples of the music and see pictures from its premier production which took place at the   Mark Taper Forum in Los Angels, CA in January 2007.

The show is currently running at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut and is slated to open on Broadway before the end of the year.

If the show is successful (Which I bet it will be), It will be interesting to see what Trends this show will generate within the entertainment industry. More of the same kind? New audiences? Will it effect the touring industry? Will it steal from the Disney/Nickelodeon live performances (concerts and stage shows?), Will it increase numbers in drama clubs around the nation?

If  entertainment breeds entertainment, Lets see what domino effect this group of teens brings to the scene.

TrendErtainment Laws: Breeding and Awareness

Hummmm…. My last blog entry was about the book & upcoming movie of He’s Just Not That Into You…. Interestingly enough, The book is influenced by an episode of Sex and the City called "Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little".

Here we have evidence of...
TrendErtainment Law# 1: Entertainment breeds Entertainment.

This is truer than ever since the movie companies now gobble up rights to anything and everything that they think could possibly make money, somewhere and somehow at anytime in the possible future. (Other movies, books, live shows…)

Now for evidence of...
TrendErtainment Law #2: Entertainment builds awareness.

That’s right, we spend thousands, sometimes millions of dollars promoting our products, which in turn are often promoting or building awareness of other ideas, products, actors, writers, locations, etc.

Rushing through the subway a free newspaper called AM New York was thrust into my hands. On the front cover “DON’T BLAME US – Sex and the City stars: NYCs ritzy transformation not our fault”. The article comments on how people point fingers at the show for inaccurately glorifying single life in the city. Though we can’t blame the show itself for an increase of young, single women moving to the city, I am sure it helped with a tipping point. There is not doubt about it, the show branded the city in a new light to a new demographic of people.  The show inadvertently became a marketing tool for the big apple.

We see evidence that crime investigation is becoming a popular major at schools.  Does it have anything to do with all the Law and Orders, CSIs, SVUs? No, its not directly linked, but I’m sure it certainly contributes a lot of momentum.

Heck, I wanted to be a doctor after watching the first two seasons of Greys Anatomy (Then came the third season and it changed my mind).

I can only hope that the Broadway musical The Heights sells out and builds a positive awareness of the section of Manhattan it is titled after since my wife and I just bought a co-op in the neighborhood. If the show does well, hopefully my real-estate value will too !

--

Through the power of TrendErtaiment we have control to bring awareness to any cause, demographic, neighborhood, or idea. In a time where our audiences feel lost, we should use our powers to help enhance our society, not break it down.

If we can build the awareness of cake baking and make it a phenomenon, then surely we can build the awareness of anything we set our minds too….And make it entertaining and inspiring at the same time.

He's Just Not That Into You - The Movie ?

"He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth To Understanding Guys." Is a New York Times best seller written by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo.

I first heard about this self-improvement-dating book when one of my (now ex) girlfriend’s mother gave it to her to prove that I wasn’t the right match (Which she was absolutely right).  From that point on I heard about the book almost daily from my other friends.

Now it is becoming a movie. Yup, a movie based on a self-help book. It is slated to open late this year. Clearly Hollywood thinks the movie will be just as appealing as the book itself. Take a look at the cast: Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson, Justin Long, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Ben Affleck.

I predict that if this movie is successful, then we will see more entertainment based on personal growth. There have also been other signs that this genre is making its way into the entertainment world (More on this in another blog). So…Will we see self-help creep its way into the live-entertainment field? It has already started to spread through the development and popularity of EduTainment. With people looking for personal growth more in this day than ever before it is very likely a new branch of entertainment will begin to reveal itself. 

Thespis – A Remarkable Influence

Lets take a look at an instance of TrendErtainment circa 535 BC.

Thespis of Icaria…

He is the Greek guy  you read about in history class who is tagged to be the first person to step out of the chorus and onto the stage as a individual actor. Whether it be truth or legend, it is clear that his contribution has created a tsunami of influence in the entertainment world.

It is good to reach back to our roots and get back to the basics. Once we do that we can take the basics and stretch them as far as they can go to make something remarkable. This goes for all areas of our business.

---

According to The Cassell Companion to Theatre, “It is generally supposed that Thespis, who managed a traveling company, transported his actors in wagons, which also served as their stage,”. Bus and Truck Tours anyone ?

---

 

And if you have not yet figured it out, this is where the word "Thespian" comes from.

The System will Set you Free

StarQuest International is the best at what they do. They host close to 30,000 young dancers every year in 40 cities. They run three teams simultaneously. On an advertising level they have eliminated all print media and rely on the execution of their remarkable product and customer relations to do the talking for them.

Recently while talking with Steve Wapple the CEO of StarQuest, I asked how he managed to make it all happen while having a life of his own. How does he lead a profitable, successful enterprise and get to go home for dinner?

His short response: “The system will set you free”.

There is difference between working hard and working smart. In the entertainment industry I have seen too many people work too hard. They sacrifice their personal lives in lieu of their careers in show business. Marriages gone corrupt, health down the drain, and freedom non-existent. Do you want that? Of course you don’t!

As a company manager and project manager, systems have become my friend. They make the overload of work bearable. Set yourself up on a unconditional schedule. Make sure that certain tasks are always done uninterrupted on certain days at certain times. Do this consistently yourself, set others up on a system, set expectations, and allow room for growth.

Build it and be set free….

It's a Kidz Bop World - Tween Entertainment

Razor and Tie has managed to create a music empire based around the tween market. In 2001 they debuted their series Kidz Bop. Even in this era of slow CD sales they still have managed to sell over 10 million albums. In March they introduced  Kidz Bop 13 which premiered on the billboard charts as #4 for sales.

The CDs contain popular cover songs with kids singing in the background, chorus, and sometimes leads.  Razor and Tie made something remarkable to its demographic and the market rewarded them for doing so.

As their popularity grew, they create an online community (My-space-esq) that is safe for kids and empowers them to use their creativity. (Where else have we seen interactive web-companions for popular tween shows?)

Next comes their re-mount of Kidz Bop Live, an interactive, concert event using the pop music from their albums. It will be affordable for the family to attend and modern enough for a mom and dad to also enjoy.

What is admirable about the Kidz Bop Live property is that they are not trying to be Disney and they are not trying to be Nickelodeon. They are being their own product.

Want to see more? In addition to their website links above, you can check out more video footage on their YouTube site here.

With the introduction of other  productions like High School the Musical, it is clear that the face of children’s entertainment is changing.

City Streets - The Next Frontier?

Recently one TrendErtainment entry touched on street performers and their placement in public space. Now lets take a look at how one visionary company has pushed the space trend in a new direction

In 2004, Counts Media introduced the Yellow Arrow.

Watch A video about Yellow Arrow here

Check out the Yellow Arrow Web Site here

Are the streets going to grow to become the next frontier? Will concepts like yellow arrow influence a new breed of interactive art and entertainment?