Entertainment guru Adam Sternberg blogs about entertaining the event industry

Black List

2010-05-30T17:27:00Z

I am often asked who is our biggest competitor and whilst there are a number of other fantastic entertainment companies out there, I am always quick to say that our biggest competitor, by far, is the internet. It is just so easy with a little time and a working finger to find, for example, your nearest harpist- and if the truth be told, with that example, if you have bothered to purchase such an expensive instrument, and the (normally estate) car to transport it, the chances are you are going to be a reasonably good player. I have yet to hear the complaint that the harpist plucked awfully! So how do we protected ourselves from the `googler`? Well a number of our competitors do not even have acts on their website, or have given the acts a code name so that the client cannot look them up on the internet. However this seems to defensive in the extreme, and how many clients are actually going to book the act, with out knowing who they are. Our strategies, on the hand, include being on venue lists (where clients to a greater or lesser extend have to book acts thropugh accredited suppliers), representing an act exclusively (even here clients do their best to persuade the act it would be in their best interest to ignore us) and creating bespoke unique entertainment.

It is of course, perfectly understandable why people should want to go direct to the act. Saving money (although this is not always the case) is, of course, the main one and frankly I have no issue with this. As I mentioned above one has to just come up with strategies to deal with this as you would with any other competition. What however really does rile me, are those clients who get you to do alot of work, coming up with ideas, devising carefully considered creative presentations and then try and steal your ideas/acts via the internet . I am not naive enough to think this is a new problem. Indeed my first job after university was for an ad agency, and this was at a time where the big issue was whether ad agencies, when pitching for new business, should include a creative proposal or not- the thought being unscrupulous clients could just `nick` the ideas. This was of course was before the age of the internet ( hmm am I giving too much away here!- and before you ask yes Charles Babbage had already invented the computer), which has made things considerably easier.

Three times in the last month, clients have tried to book acts directly that we have suggested in our proposals. Hence the reason for my rant/considered argument. These were not acts which were on our website and thus in the public domain, not acts that they had come up with themselves but acts which they heard for the first time because of us. What are we to do? I do not think it is feasible to get clients to sign a document before we quote. However what about naming & shaming these idea thieves, fighting fire with fire, using the internet itself to create a black list of all those people who steal ideas. Would it be effective? A legal mine field, no doubt. But if in big enough circulation, maybe the mere threat would be an effective deterent. Any feedback, gratefully received. Rant over.

GLEE

2010-02-21T19:08:00Z

I have just got into the American TV hit GLEE- OK I am slightly behind the time but then again I am not exactly the target market!. It was an old friend of mine (hello Jayne!- you are in blog world) who first mentioned it to me- frankly I had not a clue what she was talking about (actually this is not an unusual situation). For those out there similarly uninformed lets gives thanks for Wikipedia

Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series that airs on Fox in the United States. It focuses on a high school show choir (also known as a glee club), called "New Directions!", set within the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio.

The show is actually somewhat cliched, yet the sheer uplifting nature and quality of the performances and the songs that range from current chart hits through to Maybe This Time from Cabaret, Jazz Standards, a fanastic version of Queen`s Somebody to Love, and of Neil Diamond `s Sweet Caroline- got me to think that maybe in this depressed, post (we hope post!) credit crunched word there might be a market in the event industry for a corporate GLEE act. Song & Dance is due a resurgence I think. Have we not yet had enough of waiters pretending to be opera singers, or semi clad women hanging Cirque de Soleil style from silks above your head?

Should I start casting? Let me know your thoughts.

Excuses

2010-01-23T20:34:00Z

I love most of the acts that we book, they are quirky & creative people. However this quirkiness & creativeness sometimes comes to the fore in an area which is not quite so useful for our business, namely the excuses they come up with for missing a gig . Below are my top 10 excuses

1. I got the year wrong (the day or the month even but the year!)

2. My pet snake is sloughing its skin (do you really need to be there to help?)

3. I have a spastic colon (what exactly is that, oh never mind I probably do not want to know)

4. I got to the venue and it was a building site so I went home (when I said the venue was a building site, I meant it)

5. I am stuck in my house, the police have shut the road due to an armed siege in the house next door ( I checked this one. It was true!)

6. I have just discoverd I am allergic to celery (so?)

7. My horoscope warned me about unpleasant things happening at work today (you misread it. It said fatal things would happen if you missed work today)

8. My wife has just left me for my best friend taking my two daughters with her and I am goimg to be sectioned (oh come on, I am sure you could still do our job)

9. I have to go to hospital- I swallowed a magnet ( at least you will be able to find your own way there)

10. My stilts have wood worm (bring them along, I am sure no one will notice)

Has anyone else been given bizarre excuses for things not happening as they should?

Entertainment will be the death of us

2010-01-06T16:19:00Z

The Top 5

2009-12-01T20:56:00Z

I was at an event a couple of weeks ago, where a private client, with endless cash, was celebrating his 50th birthday. He had his 5 favourite acts:

1. Famous Belly dancing Troup from Egypt

2. Cast of Phantom of the Opera

3. Luci Jones of X factor Fame

4. Dame Shirley Bassey

5. Michael Buble

It got me thinking (other than I wish their were more clients like this!). What would I choose as my 5 acts if money was no object. After much thought I went with:

1. The Verve

2. The Mighty Boosh

3. Cortes singing Nella Fantasia

4. Top Broadway Cast singing selection Of Sondheim hits (no not a contraditction!)

5. String Fever (yes I Know..)

What would you choose?

Sex Part Two

2009-11-14T21:00:00Z

Well, my last sex blog seemed to be of more interest that my blog on artists contractual issue- funny that. But the sex question is a complicated one and no more so than in the dilemma that I face almost daily regarding what is deemed as acceptable or not regarding sexual allure (good word that, so 1930s! ) of artists. To highlight this just look at two enquiries I had last week:

a) We would like a string quartet- can they be, you know, quite er, well short skirts that kind of thing. Most of the audience are men.

b) Our theme is burlesque but we do not want it too revealing as the client is quite conservvative

Starting with the last one first. For heavens sake if you have a conservative client, why are they having a burlesque theme. It`s like asking for a stripper who does not take any clothes off.

The first enquiry- which is very common and, as in this instance. most normally asked by a rather embarrassed woman who realizes that this type of enquiry does not excatly sit well with the non sexist PC world all right on women (and forward thinking men) believe is right. It is amazing that 75% of string quartet enquiries focus on what they are wearing (or more accurately how much they are wearintg). I do not think I have had anyone ask... Are they any good?

Finally I remember a relevant incident that happened about 5 years ago. We had a client in Cairo who wanted to book a Madonna lookalike (this being the ever enduring pop star, not the even more enduring icon of the Roman Catholic church). We indeed had a great one who was more than happy to travel to the home of the Pharoahs. Yet we ended up with a very angry client who complained that the act was wearing far to few clothes- When I pointed out this is how Madonna dresses- the client answered rather dismissively `if I am paying she dresses how I want.` So at the home of the Pharoahs, it is not a question of Walking Like an Egyptian but more Dressing Like a Mummy!

SEX PART ONE

2009-11-01T20:45:00Z

I was wondering what I could do to get more people to sit up and notice my blog- and I hit upon the unique and fascinating subject of Sex- well if it sells newspapers maybe it can raise the profile of a blogger. In fact my issue this blog is not just simple sex (if ever it were that simple!) but rather a moral/business dilemma with sex at its core- a sex issue with depth! So my dilemma started about 6 weeks ago when a very wealthy client of mine - who was getting married and for whom we had already supplied alot of enertainment- wanted me to supplier some strippers for his stag do- infact it went slightly further than that he wanted flexible strippers who would strip in their limousine after they arrived at the airport in Faro-. Now I must say that our policy since we have been in business is not to supply strippers- not really from a moral reason but more that it does not fit in with our image. However, this client was not only offering me loads of money but also made me feel that it was part and parcel of the wedding entertainment. So the question was did I say no, turn down the money and the possible larger wedding booking or did I just bite the bullet and go with it. But maybe the larger question is this: In a time of business downturn, do we become morally more flexible?

Please Watch

2009-08-30T19:13:00Z

The great and tricky thing about live entertainment is that it is so personal. One of the things that makes the X factor and Britain`s Got Talent so successful is the fact that we (and the judges) can have widely differing opinions on the acts, with these opinions reflecting our own differing personalities. I have recently seen an amazing act on YOU TUBE. Kseniya Simonova won the Ukranian version of Britain`s Got Talent and is a sand artist. She is one of the best acts I have seen in a long time. Yet I wonder, with all the successful acts on the UKs version of the competition being dance, vocal or some trite novelty act, how such an `emotional` act would fare over here. Please watch the clip below and let me know your thoughts and if you do not like the act as is,think of the branding possibilities!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhbKovroSgg&NR=1

Why write a Blog?

2009-08-22T20:44:00Z

Many people have asked me why I write a blog? How to you have enough time? Do you have anything interesting to say? How do you know anyone reads it. Well there are a number of reasons why I write a blog - it is evidently another way to get my company`s profile out into the market place, it enables me to engage with the event community and to raise issues which I think are important (see my next blog on the question of morals). Enough time? Well there is time for anything if you think it is important enough. Is what I say interesting? You tell me. Now as to whether anyone reads it, on this I can be more certain. Beyond the figures that Event Magazine has which show the numbers people that read the blogs- several clients of mine have mentioned my blogs in conversation and one piece of new business can be attributed directly to it. Yet all this pales into insignificance with the following email, I received 2 weeks ago

Hey Adam

How are you? Was just chatting with Jeremy about you as I found some old photos and shared them with him. He lives in San Francisco and I am in Mallorca .

I found your blog - no hiding in these days of technology, eh?

And so it was that via this blog, a girl who I had not see for 20 years, since my year abroad in Geneva managed to track me down- something facebook, friendsreunited et al had not been able to achieve. Within a week of that email, we had been able to find and arrange a reunion with the 6 of us who were out there.

As for the picture she mentioned, I think it shows, even at an early age, I was out spotting musical talent!

So the message is, blog ahead, as they do get seen, they do get read. And you never quite know where it might lead.

How far do you go?

2009-08-12T10:47:00Z

Just how far do we go to meet the clients demands. The answer, particularly in the present climate, seems to be as far as we need. The client says jump, we become Olympic High Jumpers, the client says bend, we contort ourselves, the clients says we cannot afford this amount, we try to find an amount that they can afford. Yet it does seem to me that in the mad rush to keep the client happy, we forget that we are all experts, that the client cannot know as much as we do, and that a well placed no actually does wonders for a working relationship

I have had, in the recent months, a number of examples where the client has not taken our advise and as a result ended up with an `I told you so` moment

a) The bride who insisted on choosing not only every single song (without exception) that the DJ should play, but the exact order it which they should be played. When we mentioned that it might be a good idea to leave the DJ some flexibility, if her choice of songs was not making people dance, she said she did not want flexibilty. For most of the evening there were only two people on the dance floor. Mind you one of them was the bride!

b) The client who asked us to do a quiz night. They then rather dissmissively told us the questions were far too easy (`we have very bright people here you know`). We made the questions suitably hard for such an erudite audience. Out of 15 teams only one got over 50%.

c) The client who did not want to spend money on a stage, despite our objections- and then wondered why the audience- most of whom could not see the act- chatted through the entire performance of our opera group

d) The client who insisted on putting the comedian on at 11.30, after we had warned that the audience would be far too drunk at this stage. The comedian bombed, prroving that however funny an act is, if the audience has lost its collective sense of attention it will not work.

Has anyone else got any choice examples of the disasters that can occur when clients choose not to listen to our (most often) good advice

The Duck Clause

2009-08-09T19:47:00Z

Dealing with artists, as we do on a daily business, is often exciting and inspiring as many of them have a creativity and energy which most people in `normal jobs` do not have. However, the opposite side of this coin, is that you are dealing with people who can be very temperamental, changable and who are not necessarily motivated by the same things that you and I are. They can also do the most unexpected things. Just how unexpected, you will see from this true story that happened shortly after we started.

One of the very first gigs we did was supplying a piano bar singer to a glamourous new night club, which had just opened in the East End. The Piano Bar was part of the VIP section which included a bar and an area for dancing. We had recently come acrross this brilliant, young, charismatic singer/pianist, who, I felt, would be ideal. So the night came, I arrived with the artist. he sat down at the piano, and after Candle in The Wind, The Long and Winding Road and Piano Man, the audience were eating out of his hand. I left secure in the knowledge that the future of STERNBERG CLARKE would be helped on its way by the sucess of this gig.

1am in the morning, I received a phone call from the bar owner. He was angry. Very angry. I was, to say the least, suprised, based on how sucessfully the gig seemed to be going when I left. My surprise, however, was nothing, to the astonishment I felt when the owner, had calmed down enough to say. `There is a duck on the dancefloor and its all your musicians fault. Did`nt you tell him he could`nt bring one` If ever the word speechless was accurate, this was it. I did manage to get out the tried and tested `I will look in to it and get back to you tomorrow`. Damm, I thought, how could such a perfect gig go so horribly wrong- and did he really say Duck?

First thing the next moring, I phoned the act. `Brilliant` gig, he said, `they loved me.` I mentioned the conversation I had had with the irate owner, who certainy did not seem to love him. `Ah yes`, my musician said, `there was a slight confusion`. I asked if he could enlighten me about this confusion and this, almost word for word is what he said.

`Well yesterday afternoon I was down by Clapham Common going for a walk, when I noticed this baby duck, which seemed to have been abadonned by his mother. It was all alone, I felt so sorry for it so I decided to take it home- feed it and look after it. By the time I had done this, I realised it was time to go mto the gig. So I put the duckling wrapped in my scarf and put it my bag and took it to the gig.`

And from there I discovered the duckling had escaped from the bag and had ended up on the dance floor causing mayhem amongst the VIPS- hence the irate club owner- and understandably so.

The moral of the story. The bar owner obviously thought we should have had a clause in our contract specifically forbidding musicians from bringing ducks to work. A duck clause. However, what seemed clear to me then, and remins true today, that whatever eventuality you can imagine happening to an artist, there will always be something else that the artist will do, that you never could have predicted.

Is the client always right?

2009-07-20T21:38:00Z

I have had, in the recent months, a number of examples where the client has not taken our advise and as a result ended up with an `I told you so` moment

Has anyone else got any choice examples of the disasters that can occur when clients choose not to listen to our (most often) good advice

Memory- the key

2009-06-21T20:35:00Z

What is in your opinion the most important part of the event mix? Is it the venue?- there are certainly a number of awesome ones around, or maybe the food? (the meal I had last week from Dish at The Natural History Museum was amazing). How about the production?(my friends at Event Concept do remarkable things with lighting and sound)- you can probably see where I am heading here...Despite the brilliance and importance of all those things mentioned above, I am convinced that live entertainment and particularly music is the most important aspect- or actually to be more precise the most memorable aspect- and, what is more, I have science on my side . The bit of the brain that deals with memory is very closely related to the bit of the brain that processes music. Read this fascinating article which covers this in great detail: www.livescience.com/health/090224-music-memory.html.

What this means for all event organisers is that a year after your event people are more likely to remember the music than any other single element of the event. Which leads to my unbiased conclusion that, bluntly, you should spend more time and effort getting that right than anything else!

The Truth hurts but tell it anyway

2009-06-06T19:55:00Z

I often find myself siting in on our Wednesday auditions (remember for all you keen performers out there who really wants to be a singer than working in the events industry- we will see anyone who wants to audition every Wednesday)- wondering how the performer I am listening too really thinks they are going to make it. Last week was a classic example- a female jazz singer, 25, intelligent, pleasant, attractive- her only slight negative was that she sang flat- not very flat, I mean it was very nearly the note, very close, but not quite the note. And as I am sure you are aware singing almost the note, is not quite good enough, and it isn`t one of those issue which are a matter of personal taste- so I cannot explain it away by thinking, well it is just a hang up of mine- there`s a whole audience out there who will like this- because there is`nt. So what did I do? Did I tell her? Did I tell her actually her audition reminded me of fingernails on a blackboard? Did I have the courage to be a Simon Cowell? Of course I did not. I took the time honored way out-`Thank you so much, we will be in contact when something suitable crops up`. Then it struck me the self delusion that many acts have, is the fault of their parents, teachers, friends and people like me. who do not have the courage to say what they think- so for years they have always been told they are fantastic. This is wrong. It means people are wasting their lives on a dream that cannot be fullfilled, in an industry that is hard enough for the most talented. I remember my mother told me at an early age I would not be good enough to be an actor- seemed harsh at the time but quite right- and I focused my energy elsewhere. So I am determined to tell the truth to the next flat jazz singer I hear- am I right or not?

Britains Got Talent

2009-06-01T08:04:00Z

I watched, with millions of other viewers, the semi finals and finals of Britain Got Talent-brilliant (or manipulative!) TV, could you have scripted any thing better?- yet admist me being manipulated, I try to keep a professional hat on- which of those acts would be suitable for the corporate market , are there any trends there worth noting. As far as trends are concerned, it has always seemed to me that dance is very underused in corporate events, and I really hope that the brilliance of all three dance acts (and I am not including the Greek one!) in the final will lead to a resurgance not only in street dance but of dance of all sorts- great dance is awesome. As far as specific acts are concerned, the dance acts, of course, are bookable, maybe the sax player but other than that, would anyone in the corporate market book any of them, if they had not been on TV.- which brings me nicely to Susan Boyle- could I have a straw poll of the corporate market to find out, who would be interested in booking her?