When everything points to “it should not be” and it ends up being, there’s probably a Feld Entertainment veteran steering the ship.
That was the case in Buenos Aires in 1989, the second year Feld Entertainment was planning Walt Disney’s World on Ice dates in that grand city as part of the Latin American expansion of the company. But this time out, they were not working with an established promoter. In fact, they weren’t even working with an established venue. It hadn’t been built.
Bill Powell was the point man. “That was so ridiculous,” he remembers now. But what he and the Feld group did is a lesson everyone in the business can learn from, even if they never have to go to such extremes.
In six-months-time, Powell, his team and associates created a promotion, marketing and ticketing campaign in a foreign country from scratch, all the while uncertain the “building” they had booked would ever open on time. Powell saw it as a task.
In 1987, Feld’s ice show had played Luna Park, promoted by the colorful Tito Lectoure, who promoted boxing twice a week at that venue, most famously managing middleweight champion Carlos Monzon. “You might as well have been in Europe as South America. Buenos Aires was that kind of city,” Powell recalled.
The show did well. It was Feld’s first time doing business with Lectoure, who was hardnosed, but effective. Still, the next year, Feld decided to seek other opportunities.
Less than a year out, Chuck Smith, Feld CFO at the time, called Powell.
“Hey, there’s a new building that’s going to open at a place called Centro Costa Salguero. You guys should go down there and look at this thing. We’re getting communication these people potentially want to do business with us.”
Powell and Bob Hannigan did just that. Research informed them the new building was near a small municipal airport. In fact, it was at the end of the runway. It was raining when they arrived at the international airport in Buenos Aires. They hailed a taxi and headed to the site, where “this guy is going to give us a tour of the building. I think, ‘Oh good. It’s raining, but we’ll be in the building.’”
It was December and the building was scheduled to open July 1. This was a research trip to determine if the ice show could fit, like they would do in the case of any new venue.
Powell had been working in Latin America three or four years by then and pretty much knew what to expect, but he didn’t see this coming.
The cab pulled up to Centro Costa Salguero. “I see an airport, that looked right. But the guy pulls up to an empty field.”
“You’re supposed to take us to Centro Costa Salguero. Where is everything?”
“This is Centro Costa Salguero.”
Peering through the rain into a mucky clay field, Powell was literally flabbergasted. There was no building. Then he saw a hand go up in the air, out in the field. “Is this guy motioning to us?”
He was, so they trekked over clay, mud and cobbled up field and, all of a sudden, came to an area that had been graded. It was about the size of a football field, all sticky red clay. At one end, he spotted a big metal girder, like those used for the vertical leg supports on a Delta Steel Building, lying on the ground.
And that was the extent of the construction to date of Centro Costa Salguero, which they were there to check out for a Disney on Ice show in six months!
Their host introduced himself as manager of Centro Costa Salguero. “We are so happy to have you here.”
They were very pleasant to him and he to them. He led them to a little construction trailer off to one side and showed them the plans. “Yes, we are going to have the best building in Buenos Aires and we are going to host Disney on Ice. It’s going to be wonderful. I want to show you.”
“Yes sir, we will be up and running by July 1.”
They saw plans for a modular building, with straight sides and angled off to a peak, almost like a tent. Girders go up one at a time and are locked into place, click, click, click. Still, there was only one girder on the ground and it was December.
And that was just the building. It had no box office, no seats, no backstage area, and just one small entrance and bathrooms baked in. It was basically being built as an exhibition hall.
Powell made copious notes, took some pictures and headed back to the hotel.
“I can’t believe what I saw. There’s nothing there,” he remembers, asking Hannigan, “What do you want to do?”
On the plus side, the guy said the building would be open and the Feld and Disney organizations really want to play Buenos Aires. It’s an important market.
Powell started working it backwards, analyzing the task at hand. He figured out the shipping date to Argentina from wherever the show was in Europe when it started the migration. He figured the drop-dead date was May 1, at which point Feld would start accumulating serious hard costs with cast, crew and 21 shipping containers enroute from the port of Rotterdam. They could still call it off May 1.
“That was preferable to saying yes, absolutely, and then you show up and there is no building and you’ve incurred all the costs and you can’t play. This is our hard line in the sand. If we don’t have enough together, we won’t lose as much.
“We went back and laid everything out on the table. This is what it is. This could be good or a complete bust. By May 1, we should know if this can physically happen. That is also when we would start the advertising campaign.”
And so the contract was written, with protection, and the two returned home to consider next steps.
To be continued…. Based on a true story as told to Linda Deckard
Photo: Sherry and Bill Powell, taken at a Florida Facility Managers Association meeting in West Palm Beach. (Courtesy of VenuesToday)