Remember when finding something to do at a sports arena in the summer months required creativity and ingenuity? In 1993, when Peter Luukko was president of the Spectrum in Philadelphia, the staff was looking for something to do in those in-between months. Hockey, basketball, and college games were over. “We decided to do a rib […]
Remember the day you had options when the headliner couldn’t perform? There were ways to save the day for the entrepreneurial risktakers in the concert business. Experience helped tip the scale. Mike McGee had an experience in Lakeland, Florida, in October 1975, that turned out quite differently than originally planned. It was the first time […]
Jay Roberts was super excited he had booked Lady Gaga to open Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh in 2010. David Morehouse, president of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team, had charged him with finding someone somewhat on brand and big-time to open the new arena, which was replacing the classic Mellon Arena, the oldest National Hockey […]
Since December 1988, Feld Entertainment’s Bill Powell had been traveling to Buenos Aires every two weeks to put together a self-promoted production of Disney on Ice at a not-yet-built venue. He had built the show promotion from scratch, but he couldn’t build the building. He was counting on the company that showed him a girder […]
Once Bill Powell and the Feld organization had contracted to play a non-existent building in Buenos Aires just seven months out, it was time to think beyond the building to the marketing, ticket selling and promotion of the event. Powell had booked Walt Disney’s World on Ice (as it was known at the time) in […]
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 […]
Filling an arena bowl with water to create a pool suitable for racing jet skis is a challenge and a spectacle most venue managers just read about. Scott Mullen has done it — twice. While neither event was successful financially, the PR factor and the public’s awed reaction made both experiences a treasured memory for […]
In 1974, Lawrence Welk toured arenas, doing exceptionally well across the country. Lionel Dubay, two years into managing the brand-new, 7,200-seat Augusta (Maine) Civic Center, saw an opportunity. His first call to promoter Lon Varnell, a legend in the industry, didn’t go so well, though the mere fact Varnell took a call from a pretty […]
Marilyn Manson’s opening act was Nashville Pussy. The show was set for April 28, 1999, at Five Seasons Center (now U.S. Cellular Center), Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a small and conservative town. “When we announced the show, the biggest issue was that on the marquee we advertised Nashville Pussy as the opener. So I would say […]
At 9:15 a.m. on Monday, April 27, 1981, the sheriff walked into Cliff Wallace’s office with legal papers filed by the mayor of Pittsburgh saying Wallace was never to set foot in Pittsburgh again. Who says sports isn’t political? And, of course, there is a story behind the headlines blaring that Cliff Wallace and New […]