The circus was playing Detroit and Joe Gold was there to advance the show when the shit hit the Cadillac. “My two best stories have to do with manure. And we were the talk of the town both times,” Joe says of his years as regional marketing director for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey. […]
The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo was the first big, national client for Greg Flakus’ GF Strategies. He was hired in 1997 to wean its 110 commercial concessionaires from the historical flat rate per foot charge for space to 15 percent of the gross, using a sales tracking system he had refined for fairs. The […]
On Oct. 4, 1979, Pope John Paul II visited Living History Farms, Des Moines, Iowa, and Chris Bigelow was there. It was the largest crowd in Iowa history. It was a cold and rainy autumn day. Bigelow, who now has his own consulting firm, The Bigelow Companies, tells it like it was: In 1976, Bigelow […]
When some Eastern European promoter poured beer on the ticket stubs so they could not be accurately weighed, Stuart Ross found a workaround. Concert production pro Ross didn’t know the scope of his problem when he found a solution. He discovered a scale that could weigh/count the hard tickets sold for Lollapalooza general admission at […]
A young and naïve Adina Erwin was in search of a career in 1994. She had stumbled onto the live entertainment industry as a nighttime event receptionist at the Charlotte (N.C.) Coliseum. That’s when she started to see “this is a thing, you can do this.” “I didn’t know this industry existed. I didn’t know […]
Brad Bryant’s big break into show biz involved a baby, a lime green Monte Carlo, and a front porch in Pemberton Estates Court. To get the job as a promoter for Feld Entertainment, he had to interview with the maestro, Bill Powell, who worked out of his Florida home. There was no job description. Today, […]
Yes, sir. Disney on Ice will open at 7:30 on Tuesday. No matter whether it’s in Jakarta or Jacksonville, every Feld Entertainment promoter knows the show must go on and you do what it takes, preferably in trade not tender. Brad Bryant started his career with Feld Entertainment in 1986 (a separate story). By 1992-93, […]
In 2006, five months into her new job as executive VP and GM of AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami, Kim Stone had to plan an NBA championship parade — in 72 hours. It did not go well. There’s nothing in her storied career in venue management, which has led her to manage Chase Center in San […]
Before Google, I had Pauline. Pauline Davis was not just a good friend, a traveling companion, a co-worker, she was my memory. From the day I met her at Amusement Business in 1976, she was my guide to the industry and my ever-ready journal of faces and places. Pauline Davis, also known as Hardaway and […]
The Rolling Stones were playing JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, now site of the Wells Fargo Center, in 1981. Per the contract and per usual, the Stones wanted to collect all their merchandise money in cash that night from Nilon Brothers, the stadium merchandise and food service purveyor. Peter Luukko was regional VP for Spectacor Management Inc. […]
