Paul J. Emery, III, still has trouble articulating just how awesome it was to see Night of the Proms for the first time.
You can hear the excitement in the veteran promoter’s voice when he talks about the unique European festival that he’s bringing to American shores for four dates this summer for what he hopes will be a successful trial run for a much larger tour in 2015.
“I thought, ‘how do they have all these amazing artists on stage and they’ve been doing it for 30 years and how have we never heard of it?',” he said of the three-decade-old concert event that has been a smash success in Europe since 1985.
Though it will boast such high-profile names as Michael McDonald, the Pointer Sisters, Kenny Loggins, and Nile Rodgers and Chic, Emery is aware that he will have to do some serious work to teach America about the Proms. So he’s dipping into his toolbox of past success for a concept that helped him break the Blue Man Group more than a decade ago.
Back when they were best known as the weird guys in those Intel Pentium chip commercials, Emery used a Blue Man Group tour as part of a PBS pledge drive in 2006 to educate the consumer about the percussion-heavy act. The result was a hugely successful tour, and a relationship with PBS that Emery tapped again this year to produce a Night of the Proms 11-episode series and TV special to introduce American audiences in the four targeted markets to the concept.
“I [learned about Proms] through International Media in Ft. Lauderdale who I worked with to produce Celtic Thunder for PBS,” he said. After watching some archival footage of European Proms shows, Emery said he was hooked on the concept of big-name stars performing with a classical orchestra, 24-voice choir and 8-piece electric rock band on a huge stage with a major light show and home stereo-like sound.
He hooked up with the series’ Belgian co-creator, Jan Vereecke, who was excited to work with the former Contemporary Productions promoter out of St. Louis to break Proms in North America. Emery, who left Clear Channel before it became Live Nation, tapped into a colleague from those old days, AEG Live’s Regional Midwest VP Joe Litvag, who flew overseas in December with him to check out a Proms performance.
“I got the rights to be the North American presenter and exclusive producer,” said Emery, noting that the Danish promoter is allied with Live Nation, but the rival company didn’t seem interested in bringing Proms – which has sold more than nine million tickets in Europe to date – to America. Now, AEG is partnering to present two of the four shows directly and support the other two when they hit Verizon Theatre in Dallas (June 19), Verizon Arena in Little Rock (June 20), Sprint Center in Kansas City (June 21) and CenturyLink Center in Omaha (June 22).
“We’re co-promoting Dallas and Kansas City and are involved in Little Rock and Omaha,” said Litvag. “As Paul and I started sussing it out, we thought about doing one market, then it grew to two to subsidize the expense and then it grew to four.”
But why take Proms to four low-key Midwest venues and not make a big splash in primary markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas or Miami? Emery believes he can roll the tour out to 20 markets in 2015, but in keeping with his Blue Man Group experience, he’s starting small before he goes huge.
“The first indication we got from the pledge drive we just finished on PBS in those markets is that we are bringing something new we can introduce to the American public and see if people get a taste for it,” he said. Thanks to 13 30-minute episodes that used footage from past Proms and a 60-minute special that focused on the American performers, Emery said he’s confident those markets will embrace the concept.
“As a promoter, I know I can do this in New York and L.A. and be successful at it and still stiff everywhere else,” Emery said. “To do a true test I felt like we needed to go to middle America and if we can be successful there we can do it everywhere.” The four markets were chosen based on relationships Emery already had with PBS stations in those cities thanks to the Blue Man Group. He also decided to keep the rollout small at first to avoid a “catastrophic mistake” should the concept not catch on.
Litvag declined to talk hard numbers, but said AEG, Emery and Vereecke all have some skin in the game. And while Emery is the North American producer and AEG is acting as promoter, behind the scenes the division of labor is not quite as black-and-white.
A big factor in doubling down on dates was the huge costs involved with bringing Proms over. Though DSS Inc. out of Kansas is providing much of the light, sound and video equipment, which will fill four semis, the people cost is significant. In addition to round-trip flights and hotels for 100 orchestra, choir, band and crew members from Belgium, Emery also has to feed and transport that small army to and from four cities, in addition to moving and feeding the DSS crew and headlining artist and their entourages, for a grand total head count north of 150.
The cost? Emery would not say, but he said it was absolutely a “seven-figure” production. To lure audiences, Emery is keeping tickets reasonable, with prices ranging from $29.50-$85, with a few markets offering Gold Circle packages in the $125-range.
So, who is the target audience? “That’s what we don’t know [yet],” Emery said just a week after the first tickets went on sale. “In Europe it’s everyone from high school teens to seniors. But that’s because they’ve been indoctrinated and they know what it is and they sell out three arena shows in Munich.”
Litvag said instead of trying to reproduce the wide draw of the European shows, the team decided to superserve boomers in the U.S. initially with an eventual goal of widening their net. “The U.S. is still so radio-driven and genre-specific we thought it made sense to [focus on one audience] instead of trying to book acts all over the map,” he said. “Let’s appeal to one demo first, get traction and grow it.”
But for take one, Emery thinks Boomers will definitely be the sweet spot, reveling in their nostalgia for McDonald’s time in the Doobie Brothers and Loggins’ “Footloose” success, not to mention the Pointers' and Rodgers’ disco heyday. “It will be an audience who loves them, but has never heard them with a lush backup band like this.”
As for how he’ll reach them, Emery is tapping some database marketing tools, 70s and 80s terrestrial radio formats, group sales pitches on TV and trying to surf on the wave of popularity of choral and choir groups, thanks to shows like “Glee.”
“The biggest component that got me excited was the PBS involvement,” said Litvag, who couldn’t stress enough how big a factor that is in getting the word out. “If we didn’t have that I probably wouldn’t be doing this.” The initial run of episodes has been so successful, he noted, that PBS national and international have both expressed interest in getting into the NOTP TV business.
Litvag will also employ lots of online marketing, and leverage the fact that Kansas City and Dallas are AEG facilities to get the word out, as well as tapping Omaha and Little Rock to help spur group and suite-holder sales. “We want this to be like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which has grown into an annual tradition for families,” he said.
As for what success will look like in year one, Emery has reasonable expectations. “If I break even, then it is absolutely a success,” he said. “If I can do 5,000 people in every venue and introduce the show and create word-of-mouth to catapult it to the next level?”
Contacted for this story: Paul J. Emery III, (314) 647-2434; Joe Litvag, (314) 862-4440