Pioneers are passionate people and when they’re pioneers in live entertainment, their missions became the industry’s gain.
Vince Egan, who died unexpectedly Dec. 1 at the age of 74, created an enduring legacy when he founded VEE Corp. and toured the first Sesame Street Live, a family show that was not on ice, involved no animals and featured life-size puppets.
Dean Justice, one-time manager of Erwin Center, Austin, Texas, who died Oct. 29 at the age of 88, dedicated the latter half of his life to archiving touring entertainment at the University of Texas, a one-of-a-kind depository of documents and oral history of professional touring entertainment industry.
They joined other industry luminaries who died earlier in 2016, including Dick Shaff, a convention center guru who learned the ropes the hard way, sweeping floors and hanging lights, until he ran Moscone Center, San Francisco; David Ross, the go-to mentor who many cite as instrumental in their careers, who ran Show Me Center, Cape Girardeau, Mo., toward the end of his career and Roy Saunders, Mr. Tulsa, who ran all venues in Tulsa for decades and who helmed the International Association of Auditorium Managers (now known as the International Association of Venue Managers), as did Ross and Justice, back in the day. Just Dec. 12, Tom Moffatt, Tom Moffatt Productions, the first and main promoter of shows in Hawaii and Asia, also passed away.
The live entertainment industry, founded on the efficacy of gathering places like arenas, stadiums, convention centers and theaters, is not that old. Our pioneers are our founders. Their stories define an industry.
Vince Egan’s is top of mind this week. Jay Humphry, who worked with Egan for decades and is still producing USO tours with Sesame Workshop, remembers the early years and the struggle to create a new brand. Egan founded VEE Corp. and toured the first Sesame Street Live in 1980, after selling Joan Ganz Cooney and Jim Henson at Sesame Workshop on the idea.
It’s a relationship business and Egan already knew Cooney and Henson because, as marketing director for Ice Follies, he had convinced them to be involved in that show. Humphry well remembers the day Egan and Henson asked him, a champion Canadian Olympics skater, to put on the Oscar the Grouch suit for that ice show. When Irving Feld bought Ice Follies from Arthur Wirtz, there was no more need for Sesame Street characters. Feld had a deal with Disney.
So Egan left Ice Follies and brought the Sesame Street Live idea to life with Henson and Cooney. With backing from Norwest Growth Fund, and a mortgage or two on his house, Egan produced the first Sesame Street Live and invited the venues industry to a black-tie party celebrating the premiere at the now defunct, Bob Reid-managed Met Center, Bloomington, Minn.
Humphry was Egan’s first road manager. They learned a lot. “The first two years, people thought the show was on ice,” Humphry said. “It was a huge education curve to teach them that, A, the show was not on ice, and B, the characters were full size.” People knew the Sesame Street gang as puppets.
They also learned that kids in floor seats could not see the stage past 12 rows back. “Our audience was two year olds,” Humphry recalled. They had to scramble to relocate floor seats after that error was discovered.
There was also a point in the show when a Sesame Street character says “hey kids, come on down.” Humphry vividly remembers the chaos when 5,000 children descended upon the stage at the Chicago debut.
That first tour was a huge eye-opener, but Pioneer Egan carried on. His marketing genius was legendary already. Humphry recalled that wherever they were, whatever the show they were producing throughout his career, Egan would always visit Macy’s toy department, or any department store toy department, to see where the brand he was promoting was displayed. It was his gauge of the success of the show.
By 1981 and after a huge run at Madison Square Garden, New York, where Al Grant and crew sold out (and saved) Sesame Street Live, Egan decided to field two units. In 1990, he added a third. From 1984-85, add Muppets Live to the VEE Corp. repertoire, then, in 1987, Muppet Babies. In the 90s, Egan staged live shows with Bear and the Big Blue House, and in 2000, Dragon Tales Live.
At one point VEE Corp. had eight shows touring, Humphry recalled. Egan, with Jim Waters, was a prolific producer and all of his productions were first class. “That’s what VEE was known for,” Humphry said.
For all his successes and failures (including Curious George, Barney and Kidz Bop Live), Egan’s trademark talent was marketing. VEE might have a VP of Marketing other than Egan, and most of the time it did, but to the crew, Egan was the Senior VP of Marketing.
DOING THE INDUSTRY JUSTICE
Careers like Egan’s were of tantamount interest to Dean Justice, who was a pioneer himself in arena operations. He was the first to take concessions, ticketing, marketing and booking in house, running an arena like he owned it. At one point, the University of Texas owned its own Ticketmaster system (UTTM), one of the last two the company phased out.
Through the years, Justice developed a huge love of the industry and a need to preserve its history.
Jimmy Earl, current GM of Erwin Center, said, “Dean was an icon. He started the full service, one-stop shopping arena.” Earl learned the ropes from Justice, starting in the industry as his first events manager. “When Dean trained you, you stayed trained,” Earl said. “He had no tolerance for anything less than excellent and he genuinely tried to help you get there.”
Justice opened Erwin Center in 1977 and retired 20 years ago. That’s when he seriously began working on compiling the history of the touring entertainment industry, getting archival gems like an oral history of the industry from the late Allen Bloom of Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey Circus, for one.
Those archives are housed at the Briscoe Center of American History in Austin. The collections are listed by the number of inches they occupy on the shelves.
Among them: VEE Corporation Archives, 1980–1997 (7 ft., 1 in.). Proposals, minutes, drafts, scripts, itineraries, clippings, programs, correspondence, promotional and sales kits, videotapes, audiotapes, slides, brochures, and oversize material from arenas and other venues document the Sesame Street Live/Muppet Touring Show and the Muppet Babies Touring Show.
This is a tight-knit, relationship business. We thank you, Dean Justice, for helping preserve it and create it and Vince Egan for his vision and tenacity to make it happen.
The industry’s losses in 2016 just seem greater than usual. We salute you all.