Ask anyone who knew Neal Gunn what made him so good at what he did and the answer is that he liked people.
“Being in this business gives you the opportunity to meet a lot of characters. Neal had a serious side and was capable and could deliver, but he also had a fun side and he was a guy people felt relaxed and easy with,” said Mike McGee, his lifelong friend and business associate. “He didn’t come across trying to intimidate anybody or be overwhelming or anything like that.”
Gunn, who managed two arenas and two stadiums before signing on with Ticketmaster, died Dec. 20 at the age of 74. Ask any of the 150 who attended the celebration of his life at the House of Blues in Houston Jan. 27 and they will agree it was too soon. Donna Dowless, who worked with Gunn at the Lakeland (Fla.) Civic Center and at Ticketmaster, admitted she spent the day expecting him to walk into the room. He loved a party.
McGee, who currently works for Smart Financial Center, Sugar Land, Texas, grew up with Gunn in Monroe, La., where both embarked on a career in the venue business. Gunn was a high school football star, honing his skills as a leader and winner.
His first job in the business was as controller for the under-construction Monroe Civic Center. He had been working in the credit department of Sears and drove by the construction site. He knew he wanted to be part of it. Bill Lillyman, GM of the new venue, hired him before the building opened in the spring of 1967.
When Lillyman left, Gunn became assistant director and Louis Harp was brought in as director. Three months later, Gunn became director. He went from controller to director in about two and half years, and he was on the fast track ever after. Gunn had clearly found his calling.
Gunn hired McGee, who was working at a TV station in Monroe, as publicity director. The Monroe Civic Center was a very big deal in Monroe when it opened.
In 1971, Gunn moved to another big deal under con¬struction, the Lakeland Civic Center, where he was later joined by McGee and they put that arena complex and its 40,000-population town on the live entertainment map. Lakeland Civic Center opened in November 1974.
Gunn was 28 and McGee was 25. “How many 28 year olds open a major entertainment complex,” McGee asked rhetorically, recalling the headlines of those days.
“Everybody was talking about Lakeland, Lakeland, Lakeland,” he said. Geographically it had a true 360-degree drawing radius, unlike Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Naples hemmed in by a body of water. “We had the opportunity to draw from all those areas,” McGee recalled, and there was little competition at the time.
The lack of venues helped, as did the1.2 million people in a 75-mile radius. “We had to go to Orlando and Tampa to get press exposure. Once we brought in shows like Elvis and Frank Sinatra, that brought us a lot of attention and endeared us with newspapers and stations,” McGee remembered. “We were working it.”
There were a lot of naysayers, and Gunn took a lot of bullets from people early on but he made believers out of everybody due to the success they had. “I know he took a lot of pride in Lakeland,” McGee said.
Following his outstanding success with the two arenas, Gunn jumped ship for stadium land. In December 1976, he went to work for the state of Louisiana and Governor Edwards to oversee the Superdome in New Orleans, then left venue management for a few years of promoting boxing and concerts and returned to the stadium world as manager of the Astrodome in Houston and vice president of the Houston Astros.
When John McMullen sold the Astros and the operating contract to Drayton McLane, Gunn stayed another year and then moved on to Ticketmaster, where he worked with Fred Rosen and his successors for 15 years, until June of 2010.
In every situation, Gunn experienced life to the fullest, McGee recalled. “Getting the Superdome back and operating in a manner envisioned early on where the state wasn’t hemorrhaging from a deficit, he had a hand in that; he took pride in that.”
“Coming to the Astrodome, “ McGee said, “he was keeping that viable and active and ongoing and they had a lot of things out there they had not gotten in the past. McGee was operating the Houston Summit while Gunn was at the Astrodome and some expected the two to be fiercely competitive. But they worked together to put the right show in the right venue and even spread their wings outside Houston, partnering on promoting shows throughout the South, which eventually led to formation of Leisure Management International, McGee’s private management company in which Gunn had a part.
Don Rankin, Pritchard Sports & Entertainment, met Gunn during the Astrodome years and they became fast friends. “There are the good things he did and the funny things he did. When you compare Mike and Neal, both came out of Monroe. Mike got into radio, so he developed his language skills. Neal never left his Cajun-ness. Stone sober, you couldn’t understand him. When we were out to dinner and had drinks, if he said something and laughed, I laughed. I never knew what he said. He was a fun guy.”
Fred Rosen, who worked with Gunn at Ticketmaster, also commented on his thick Southern drawl, which was the essence of Neal Gunn. “Here’s the thing about Neal, it was always fun. Here was a guy who loved life and he burned the candle at both ends. He was highly professional. He cared a lot about this industry and, in the end, it was about his integrity and decency,” Rosen said, echoing the sentiment that he was a “relationship guy. People trusted him and I trusted him. He was a truly standup guy in a world of spaghetti.”
Rankin called him “level headed, smart, knew how to juggle the balls with the joint venture and his staff. He ran a good ship; he was a good taskmaster.”
“Neal and I were very fortunate at an early time in this industry. It didn’t have the level of sophistication it has now. We were able to do things that heretofore a lot of people hadn’t done,” McGee said.
The two “sort of coined the term promoter-managed building as opposed to an administrator-run building,” McGee said. “We actually promoted shows on the city’s nickel in Lakeland and Monroe, so we could get content into the market. It was pretty bold to stand in front of your city council and say, ‘we’re gong to buy talent with taxpayer money and if the show loses $100,000, that’s tax money.’ So we created concert series to collateralize the liability across four of five shows so we had a reasonable ability to have some success.”
The challenge when Gunn was making his mark in this industry was to be considered. When a tour was ready to roll, you needed awareness and profile to get the acts. That was Gunn’s strong suit.
He was among the first building advocates because it gave him the opportunity to have more content. “He was a very, very high touch guy, going out and calling on agents and talking with them in the building and making them feel he appreciated their business. He didn’t let anything get in the way of prudent and good business,” McGee said.
In Lakeland, they got a turn at anything that was playing. “When we opened Lakeland, we had a countywide parade; we got everyone with any influence in the county involved,” McGee recalled. “Neal and I were standing on the roof at Lakeland Center that day and there were 250,000 people out there for the parade and grand opening…..We turned away from each other… we thought we were going to tear up…we created a monster there,” McGee said.
Gunn was able to observe what the needs of the act or artist were and could see opportuni¬ties to fit those needs, which gave him an edge in booking.
The rewards were great. Art Buchwald sat in Gunn’s office for over an hour telling stories. Emmett Kelly drew a self-portrait while visiting with Gunn and gave it to him, which was one of his most prized possessions.
Marketing was also in Gunn’s wheelhouse. His daughter, Ingrid Gunn-Otero, fondly recalls the time she was marketing director for the Power Rangers Live tour and her dad’s venue was on the route. “He said, ‘I’m marketing this show.’ He was driving characters around in his car. It was, of course, one of the most successful dates we had. He didn’t get to do marketing anymore and he loved it. He could get in the trenches and do it.”
Ingrid see’s her father’s strength in being such a people person. “He liked for things to be right and fair and good and worked hard at it. That’s why he did so well in his career.”
She’ll also never forget the pride in his voice when someone in the business referred to him as Ingrid Gunn’s dad. While he never encouraged her to get in the business, he was pleased she did.
Gunn is survived by his daughter, widow Vonda, nephew Greg Poole, also with Smart Financial Center, and first wife Bonnie.