|
Thursday, October 13, 2005
JOHN ROLFE: ShopTalk
Concert promoter helps bring music to Maine
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||||||
 |
Also on this page: LAUREN WAYNE | |||||||||
Q: What exactly do you do in this job? A: Pretty much everything that needs to be done to market and promote a live concert event. I have an ad plan for every show. Which involves everything from media buying to radio and print promotion, postering, getting the street team coordinated. Q: What's that? A: The kids who put up fliers around town. When a new show is coming in, I have to get tickets on sale at Ticketmaster. . . . I've got to keep in touch with bands' managers or agents and come up with creative promos for radio. There are meetings, and on show days I go theto the State and 'settle' the show, which means paying people, including the band. So I do all that plus keep relationships with my agents - people I work with closely to try to get awesome bands into Maine. Q: Do you work solo? A: Not really. Most of the booking is done out of Boston by my boss. We have a team - managers - who take care of the production and hospitality, so there are a bunch of people involved, like the State Theatre staff, who are wonderful to work with. So it really takes all of us to put on a successful show. Q: What makes one successful? A: Obviously it's good to make money. But I think when an artist leaves the State feeling they've put on a good show and had a good time with the audience, and when the audience is happy, too, that's amazing. . . . I love standing in the crowd and knowing I had a hand in bringing a band to town. . . . Seeing the audience react in a positive way is an amazing feeling. The most frustrating part is seeing a band come in and put on a kick-ass, amazing show and not get mad at the people who didn't show up - "I can't believe people missed this!" But then you hope that everyone who was there tells their friends so there's a full house the next time around. Q: Do you get paid more when shows do well? A: No, I'm on salary. Q: And you work mostly out of your house? A: Yup. Q: Is that good or bad? A: At first I thought it would be very bad. I tend to work long hours and I thought I'd never be able to stop. But I've become very disciplined at stopping at 6 or 7 o'clock. Normally that's an 8- or 10-hour day, but a show turns it into 15 hours. The only drawback to working at home is I'm 20 feet away from the refrigerator. But the home coffee thing is awesome. That saves me like $10 a week. Q: Do you go to every show you book? A: I go to about 85 percent. Q: Do you enjoy all 85 percent? A: Obviously there are shows that I might not enjoy as much as others. You know, everybody has their own thing. I think I have good musical taste, but it might not seem good to somebody else. Q: Are you getting rich? A: No, you don't get into this business to get rich unless you own the company. Q: Do you meet the people you book? A: If I really wanted to, I could at the Civic Center shows, but I never really do. Not that I don't sometimes want to meet them - I just don't want to be a pain. At the State my office is right across from the green room, where the artists get ready and have food and drinks - 99 percent of the people who come to the State are so laid back, they always just talk and hang out. We had dinner with Gillian Welch when she was here. She was so nice, she refused not to have dinner with all of us. I'm so used to it, I'm not star-struck. The only exception was when I was backstage at the Civic Center and I saw Sting like, 10 feet away - he was so handsome. But I didn't scoot up and say 'hey,' I just ran right by him. Q: So you book not just at the State? A: We have an exclusive booking deal with the State, but we also book shows at the Civic Center, the Colisee in Lewiston, and then most of the national acts at the Big Easy. The Augusta Civic Center, Bangor. . . . We used to book a lot more up north. Q: How many shows do you put on in a year? A: I counted once and forgot how many. . . . I think we average around 80 to 100. Q: Are certain times of the year better? A: Spring and fall. In fact, I just got off the busiest 10 days of the whole year, nine shows in 10 days. Summers are usually really quiet in Maine, and it's really hard to get people to come here in the winter. Q: How much do bands make when they come here? A: That depends. I'm not really at liberty to discuss it.
Q: Is it ticket-sales dependent? A: Certain bands make more. . . . At the club level it can vary, from a door deal to a low guarantee, plus percentage points. Q: How much does it take to bring in a big name, like Bob Dylan? A: I can't say anything about what artists make. Anything from nothing to a lot. And when I say a lot I mean a lot. Q: How did you get into this? A: I was in the right place at the right time and totally lucked out. I met Jim Ahern, my former (Tea Party) boss, through Johnny Lomba, who owned and ran The Skinny. And he (Ahern) was looking for someone to replace Ryan Dolan, who had left to work for the Sheila Divine. And that was pretty much it. Jim and I took to each other and worked well together, and I learned a tremendous amount about the business from him. Q: What did you used to do? A: I was the recycling coordinator for my brother's garbage and recycling company for two years. I was also a recycling coordinator for a big paper company, in charge of buying cardboard and paper in tonnage. Q: So it was a natural transition, into this job. After dealing with the tons of cardboard. A: Obviously! Q: Who'd be your dream act to bring here? A: I'd love to get Calexico. But honestly, Modest Mouse, who played in June, and Interpol (Sept. 30) were two of my top five bands to get here, so I'm really stoked about that.
|
||||||||||
