Ask Yourself

How Dirty is Free?

Fast and Free seem to be the new sheik business model : 

 

Google = Fast and free

YouSendIt.com = Fast and Free

FreeConferanceCall.com = Fast and Free

Zoho = Fast and Free

Pandora = Fast and Free

SethGodin.com = Fast and Free

Facebook = Fast and Free

The list goes on…

 

Check out this great list of fast and free services provided by Inc Magazine. Now-a-days even the free services are fighting for attention! In the 80’s I don’t think many businesses would have agreed with this “free” philosophy. Remember when you could buy the Encyclopedia in grocery stores? They tried to lure you into buying the whole set by selling you the volume of “A” for 99 cents. I bet Britannica would have never thought their competition was going to a free service.

 

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I am in the process of develop several new projects, all of which will have free services attached to them. So…I posed the question: If the future model of business is “Free”, how will it work economically for businesses?

 

In my studies to understand why free is so popular for businesses right now I found the following fantabulous analogy and here it is:

 

The Bikini Concept Introduced by marketing writer Sean D'Souza.

 

By giving away 90%, the user is willing to “pay” to see the last 10%.

 

I know…I hear you saying “How chauvinistic Mr. Sudarski!”, (That was my family name before we got off the boat). 

 

It is the last 10% that is of monetary worth to the consumer. How far are you willing to give your audience, customer, or client? What last 10% can be unrevealed that has so much value that “they” will do anything to get the last part? Isn’t that what the Broadway performances at the the Tony’s and the Thanksgiving Day parade are all about on a small level? BroadwaySpace.com has started to offer their audience base free access to the stars. Will live entertainment continue to have a free models like this in the future?

 

Have you done anything FREE and gained business from doing so? Will you do it again?

 

SUCCESS BREEDS SUCCESS - Who is with me ?

For a wedding gift I bought my wife the complete Oxford English Dictionary (All 20 Volumes - Romantic, I know). Its fantastic! At your finger tips you have the opportunity to see where words came from and how they evolved. How cool right ?

I have a thing for knowing where things/people came from. From shows, to presidents, to smart-phones. A pattern that I have often seen is that successful people often come from the mentorship of other successful people. Makes sense doesn’t it ? If you wanted to be the best eye doctor in the world, would you want to study with the best optician or just your average joe? Likewise, if you wanted to develop, produce, and execute the best shows in the world, would you go to someone who churns out horrendous flop after flop, or would you want to work with those who clearly know how to be the best ?

Clearly, everyone has their own definition of “success” and what is “the best”. It’s up to each of us to strive to be our best and to find others who mirror our ideal conditions (And hopefully surround ourselves by those people).

And please, don’t get me wrong… Failure often breeds success too, but in an entirely different way. I have had my fair share of crash and burns, but I use the pain and experience to make sure I never do it again…

I have applied to the CTI 14 week workshop. I want to learn from the best. I am a fan of mentorship. I like being mentored and mentoring others. Why reinvent the wheel or make a new one when others have already walked the path before us? I want to listen to other professionals, I want to hear what mistakes they have made and what drives their best choices.

Which brings me to one more thing: Everything I mentioned above is why this blog exists. On my journey in the entertainment world I want to share what I find (both positive and negative) in hopes that my efforts assist others in succeeding as well. What is the purpose of “all this” if no legacy is left behind at the end of the day?  If you know others who are striving to be the best in the development, production, and management of entertainment please send them here . The is power in numbers and I hope to surround myself with others who are passionate to be their best (And that we all get to learn something from one another).

Cheers !

MIC

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…

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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

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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.

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 !

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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.

Bon-Jovi Understands TrendErtainment

We should invite John Bon-Jovi to subscribe to our blog. He understands TrendErtainment and how it can be used to reach out to new audiences.

Take a peek at this video-link that another TrendErtainment guru brought to my attention.

Rockin' Returns: The big business of mega concerts in an all-access behind the scenes tour...

Trends in technology are always changing. We have choices how to utilize this constant change:

A)    Stay away from it all together and stick with the traditional.
B)    Use what is available at the current time to enhance your product.
C)    Use what is available and manipulate it to create a new technology to gain attention.

Question: Which of the above is correct to use?

Answer: There is no right answer. All three options are perfectly acceptable as long as you use the technology (or absence of it) correctly to brand your product. In the case of the 40 million dollar Bon-Jovi production, it is clear they are going for a technology-based spectacle to enhance the audience’s experience.

We see the presence of evolving technology in entertainment everyday. It is here to stay, and it is our choice to utilize it or not. Imagine what trends are to follow regarding video and projection use in live events. Its only begun to expand.

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So…. How many degrees of separation will it take to influence John to join the TrendErtainment subscription feed? Any suggestions of where to start?

Fusion in the Arts: “BIG” The Hip Hop Ballet

Fusion seems to be a word I hear more and more as I walk down the streets. It involves everything from food to clothing to art.

I often hear entrepreneurs and marketing experts comment that “Everything that can be invented has been”. Though I disagree with this statement, I assume this generalization about the world is helping increase our desire to take two mediums and blend them into something new.

Now joining the art-fusion-trend is the Atlanta Ballet. Antwan (Big Boi) Patton from the Grammy winning hip-hop duo OutKast collaborated with the renowned Atlanta Ballet to create BIG a Hip-Hop Ballet.  BIG opened at the Fox Theater in Atlanta on April 10th, 2008 and has already received attention on MTV and the New York Times. This could be the start of a new crossover for Ballet enthusiasts and Hip Hop mavens.

It is interesting to see that a Hop Hop ballet is part of a season that includes Peter Pan, Nutcracker, Romeo & Juliet, and Cinderella. This is one small steps of many to help bring the next breed of entertainment to our culture.

Lauri Stallings is the choreographer and the music is a collaboration of hip-hop artists including Antwan Patton himself. Congratulations for the out-of-the-ballet thinking of all those involved

What is your favorite fusion ?

Who Wants to Be A Paradigm-breaking Hero?

The YouTube clip below has received over 22 Million views over the past several months (not including the hundreds of other feeds that aired this clip or the hits on his web site).

I am not here to preach about the appeal of today’s Reality TV phenomenon.  I am here to show you how an audience likes to participate when defining what's the next trend.

Paul Potts is an ordinary person who did an extraordinary thing, in an environment that did not expect it, and in doing so made himself a hero.

Paul won the overall "Britain's Got Talent"  competition. He now has a international tour, a best selling CD, rumors of a possible movie deal, and who knows what else.

You could have the best pop singer on the stage, but it doesn't matter because the pop-singer-idol trend is predictable and the audience rewarded the underdog, Paul Potts, for stepping out of the box.

Who is going to produce, create, or become our next hero?

We crave heroes, unfortunately many of our heroes today are not the best role models.  It our responsibility to introduce some outstanding heroes, like Paul, that we can look up to.  If we continue to promote baby-popping-teenage-drug-addicted idols, what is that saying about our culture?  The audience above demonstrate that we are ready for a change and with this change comes profit.  We created the trend, we can break it and make new trends that move us forward both in mind and in money.

Are you brave enough to take something ordinary and  make it extraordinary?

He who does this, while listening to our culture's needs (not wants), wins.

Connecting the Dots - Trends in Marketing

Over the past several years as a tour manager and associate producer, I have heard hundreds of presenters around the country ail about the fact that they spend tens of thousands of dollars in television and radio ads for fantastic shows, but they just can’t get anyone to buy tickets.

At this time, if you have Wicked, Lion King or High School the Musical at your road house, you probably are doing great on sales for those shows. but these these three shows (and a few others) all are todays popular blockbuster trend. You may not think they are the best shows and that they do not deserve the attention they get, but through the development of their branding they managed to make them selves a word or mouth phenomenon.

Seems to be a new marketing trend has emerged. Traditional media advertising is dead and the need for purple cow remarkable marketing is here.

Yup, its time to think out of the box. Lets put on the creativity hat, roll out the white board and dry erase markers and write “What’s Next” at the top. Then go to brainstorming heaven while also looking at what else is being done by your fellow regional colleagues to get the tushys in the seats.

I think the Roundabout Theatre had a great brainstorming session. Look at what they did to build awareness for Sunday In the Park with George. (By the way, I found out about this site completely by word of mouth, I wasn't looking for it at all.)

I predict that we are going to see more and more of this type of interactive, personal, creative marketing emerge. Time to reinvent!

What remarkable forms of word of mouth marketing for theatre have you encountered?

Counting the Triple Threat Sheep

If you are as passionate as I am, It is most likely there have been many night you go to bed and just can’t fall asleep because you have so many ideas running through your head.

Recently, one late evening, one of my tap dancing, opera singing, Julliard trained, AEA sheep in my head stopped in the middle of his triple time step, turned to me, lit up a Winston Cigarette and said “Hey, Michael, Buddy…All us sheep are tired of jumping over this here fence, why don’t you use us for something more than the just the chorus drones”.

So, here we are, Blogging, Using the ideas (The sheep) for something useful. To share, To contribute, To get feedback.

It is my intention to bring to you, my musings about the development, creation and trends of the live entertainment industry. Things in our culture are changing. The introduction of modern technology and media has made it a different world for producers, theatre owners, and creatives. We are often so busy with daily operations of our organizations that we don’t always have the time to see what is next. We don’t always see that we are behind. So many of us run our daily operations not realizing the consumer no longer wants what we just invested millions of dollars and hours into.

We think that things are changing today more rapidly than ever, but in all reality, they always change, change is a trend, the only thing constant is change. Together, lets listen and produce our way into the next generation of entertainment.

What trend changes have you concerned as a entertainment professional? Comment or e-mail.