[Dixielandjazz] Squirrel Nut Zippers & Jazz Festivals

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

Sorry folks: this is long, delete now if not interested.

In a message dated 9/29/04 11:04:25 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
paul.edgerton at eds.com writes:

> PE:
> Unless you know something magical about accounting that I don't, the gross
> doesn't mean a damn thing!

TW:
Sure it does,  

PE
> What matters is the net: how much is left after you've paid the bills.

TW:
That's where I see the problem is Paul: The organization is not operating 
efficiently or professionally because there does not seem to be anybody in charge 
who knows how to produce an event with a profit in mind.  They are obviously 
spending far too much money from the budget on the wrong things.

PE
 As you are well aware, there hasn't been *anything*  > left for several 
> years. 

TW:
Well, whose fault is that?  Inept Management which should have been cut loose 
several years ago.

PE:
Finally, after much belt-tightening, the Jubilee had > enough left to 
> actually support the society instead of forcing it to borrow money that had no way 
> to repay.

TW:
Then they should be two separate businesses you can't continue to "Rob Peter 
to Pay Paul"  (no pun intended) both organizations should be self sufficient.  
The society should be the sponsor as a nonprofit organization, but that does 
not preclude the Jubilee form being a big for profit arm which it should be.  
It cannot be because the mind set of the organization is still in the 
nonprofit mode.

PE:
So really, they've done the responsible thing booking more modest acts as 
headliners.

TW:
I can't agree with that, from reports I have read and heard about last year's 
event, when you go that direction you are cheating the audience that you are 
trying to enlarge, and for every person who bought a ticket and left 
disappointed they will tell just as many folks how much they were disappointed as those 
who were happy will tell their friends.  Promotion both positive and negative 
works in both directions.

PE:
 In coming years, perhaps the budget will allow for better/more expensive 
headliners.
Then and only then will we get a chance to see if they can "earn out" in the 
context of Jubilee-type event.   In any case, the expensive headliner has to 
compete with the Rivercats, and would expect to be paid even if nobody showed 
up.  

TW:

That is all taken into consideration in the planning, and if your entire 
audience is the Rivercats audience it just further negates the importance of 
expanding your audience.

In a city the size of Sacramento and the surrounding metropolitan trading 
market there is a substantial potential audience to support both events.   Do you 
think the Rivercats did not think of this before they decided to go into 
business there, they are not worried about your event so why shouyld you be 
worried about theirs, after all you have beenthere longer right?

PE:
 In any case, the expensive headliner has to compete with the Rivercats, and 
would expect to be paid even if nobody showed up.  

TW:
Sure they would that is business, don't you expect to be paid for your work 
when you show up and do the job.  If your organization does it's job correctly 
there will be an audience showing up.  The Event already has a reasonably 
established audience that you can pretty much count on, which is why it has been 
able to continue the event for so long, just like the headline act, it has an 
established (albeit it variable track record of attendance)
due more to management rather than the reliance upon headline acts to draw.  
It has to take that pretty much as a given and then expand upon it to enlarge 
it with additional ticket sales generated by the Headline act.  When it is 
successful there will be a surplus of profits from what the headline act 
contributes to the ticket sales.

PE:
 All in all, that's probably more risk than society is willing assume.

TW:
There is no guarantee in this business or any other business or even life, so 
if the organization does not want to take the risk then it has no business 
participating in the profit.

The first thing that should be booked is THE HEADLINER to insure that your 
going to sell tickets insufficient numbers to attract enough buyers to pay the 
expenses.  Hello!
That's why they are called Headliners, they have earned that status and know 
how many recordings they have sold in any given marketplace, have a track 
record of concert and personal appearance tickets that they have sold in that 
marketplace as well.

If they have not played in that market yet, they still know how many CDs, 
etc., they have sold there and how much radio air time they have had so they can 
pretty accurately determine how many paying customers they can bring to the 
party.

A professional talent buyer or booker knows these things and knows how to 
negotiate for a fair and equitable deal for the artist appearance that will be 
economically reasonable and fair for both sides.  With a Festival situation the 
festival has a better chance of amortizing the costs of the headline act over 
the entire festival.  If in doubt about the value of the headline act, put 
them into a separate venue with a charge just for their show.

You cannot keep putting on a big event and attracting the number of patrons 
as the Jubilee without expanding the marketplace, because of the normal 
occurrences annually like deaths, people relocating to other cities and states, etc., 
people being disappointed and or bored with seeing the same old mediocre acts 
year after year that they can see in almost any other festival on the circuit 
and simply not coming back.

PE:
What? That last paragraph did a marvelous job of explaining why all of the
really big draws are indeed out of the Jubilee's price range.

TW:
That paragraph explained nothing except that the organization obviously has 
no business being in the festival promotion business if that is how they view 
it.

PE:
 I know you've argued that a big name will bring in big bucks. 

TW:
I may be right ???

B.B. King a $75.000.00 Vs 60% of the gross Blues act played right next door 
to the Jubilee just after it and sold out the stadium at $30.00 to $60.00 a 
person range, the concessions made a ton of money, the parking made a ton of 
money and I would wager that the promoter made more profit in one day than the 
Jubilee did with their event over four days.

Why does B.B. King get that much money, check the seating capacity of the 
stadium (14,000 ) and multiply that by $45.00 a seat average $630,000.00, B.B. 
King as the headliner is entitled to up to fifty percent of that, unless he is 
sharing the bill with another headliner, in which case they will split the % 
after their guaranteed fees.  B.B. King is who they paid to come and see not 
Mick Martin & The Blues Rockers, who certainly could have been the opening act 
and thus garnered a larger fan base by playing on a sold out major show to B.B. 
King's audience, if they were good and well received by the B.B. King audience 
of course.  That is how an act like Mick Martin or anyone else moves up the 
ladder to one day get a shot at being a Headliner themselves. 

 Just like I and Steve Barbone are always telling this list, you MUST TAKE 
THE MUSIC TO THE PEOPLE and get your act in front of masses to be any bigger 
than you are.

The same principle applies to promoting an Event YOU HAVE TO PROMOTE IT, 
constantly.  The attitude of most nonprofit organizations is that they want 
someone to give them a pot full of money so they can have a big party and not take 
any risk or responsibility for it making enough money to continue the party for 
the following years.

They supplement this with 4000 un paid volunteers who would otherwise be 
potential ticket buyers for the event.   ( why buy the cow when you can get the 
milk through the fence)?

PE:
I take what you have to say about Maria Muldaur as an informed opinion.
Frankly, I don't think she has more than a tenuous connection with the Jazz
world. That must not be what they wanted this year.

TW:
On this I pretty much agree with you, Maria has almost no name in the Jazz 
world, and I would venture to say that she was booked because of someone's 
personal attraction to her and her music rather than a consensus that she is going 
to draw a big crowd as a headliner.  Personally I really like her and the 
music she performs too, but I would not risk any money to promote her, as a 
headliner, just not enough hard ticket sales track record these days to warrant that 
risk.  I am not saying that she should not be included on the Jubilee at all, 
but as the headliner is just total lunacy.

PE:
The Squirrel Nut Zippers, or the Big Bad Voodoo Daddies or even the Dirty
Dozen are indeed bankable and have name recognition, sure enough. The
Superbowl can afford 'em, but STJS can't -- not this year, anyway. 

TW:
You can't afford NOT to have them or someone like them, or you will never 
have enough money left over to ever buy a headliner that will be bankable.  If 
they are bankable as even you admit what the Hell is the problem?  You just 
admitted that they are bankable that equates to new people and new revenue in the 
box office that you will not have without them.  Sheesh!  The Superbowl is one 
event a year, these guys play all over the world at many events all year long 
and at various prices depending upon the situation and the negotiating 
professionalism of the buyer.

PE:
The trouble is, dropping down a notch from that level of popularity to 
something
more regional like, say, Royal Crown Revue buys you a lot less, 

TW:
 Yes, it Buys you exactly that "A LOT LESS COST but more  OF NOTHING"   In 
accounting nothing plus nothing is nothing, unless of course you paid them for 
nothing and therefore lost something, whatever you paid them is a loss that was 
created because they were not strong enough to attract enough people to pay 
them.
**
PE:
and for the same reasons you're using to argue against the choice of Maria 
Muldaur. 
They aren't headliners in the normal sense of the word.  (Actually, neither 
are
SNZ or BBVD.)

TW:
Well, they are compared to what the Jubilee considers headliners, these acts 
are bigger proven ticket sellers consistently than almost anybody on the 
Jubilee lineup.  If anybody in the jubilee organization bothered to be professional 
enough to check the readily available resources on the entertainment business 
they would know these things and be better prepared to make intelligent and 
sound booking policies for the jubilee to insure it's success as many other 
professionally operated events do all around the world.

Since The Sacramento Jubilee prides itself on being the Big Shining light to 
the OKOM world it should have the integrity to go learn how to do it correctly 
and profitably so it could actually be an example of how to promote and 
maintain a quality event with sustaining power from it's profitability.

PE:
That's a hard pill to swallow. Guess we'll have to chew it first...

TW:
Unfortunately yes but it is necessary to make the OKOM world get better and 
survive, sooner or later it must be faced and dealt with for survival, I am 
speaking pretty generically here and not intending to pick solely upon the STJS.  
These same issue have plagued several other organizations that were once 
viable events and promoters of this music, several of them are no longer with us 
and there are already rumors of others leaving us this year. 

 Heck I am not even part of this world except for being on this great list 
and making some wonderful friends and acquaintances around the world so I offer 
my free essays and sermons because I care about the music and the 
organizations that purport to support it, probably more than even they do.  Every time 
another festival or society goes under it makes it a smaller and smaller network 
of employment situations for anybody's band in this genre of music.

PE:
I agree, most jazz societies wallow in mediocrity. And yet, for the tiny
little market niche that traditional jazz clings to, those societies
represent the bulk of the market. There are expensive jazz parties and even
more expensive jazz cruises. But for most people, the opportunities to hear
live traditional jazz happen almost exclusively at jazz society meetings and
jazz society-sponsored festivals.

TW:
Exactly my point Paul:    It has become an ever shrinking group of private 
parties and cruises that the general public often cannot afford to attend even 
if they knew about them which most of them do not because the Societies are not 
doing a proper job of promoting them to the masses and exposing them to the 
music genre.

PE:
So we haven't done very well. Well, there ain't a lot of seed corn in the 
silo,
so we can't get from where we are to where we want to be in one step.

TW:
Sure we can, every musician and volunteer and society is an ambassador and 
needs to promote it and talk about it at every given opportunity and place, just 
like the current National election campaigns for an example, they are taking 
it to the people in every possible way they can find.  I doubt there is one 
American breathing that does not know there is an election coming, the choirs 
are out in full force, and they candidates are looking for the unwashed under 
every park bench and underpass, Indian reservation, church, Hurricane, coal 
mine, etc. etc. etc.   you know what I mean.

PE:
Tell me again, please, who are these really great professional acts we've
driven away from OKOM?

TW:
Any Act that falls within the expanding realm of OKOM which gives you a vast 
area to tap into that has not been tapped before because of trying to keep it 
all Traditional and pure.

Louis and Bix and Oliver, Sidney, Watters, Murphy and Wild Bill are dead and 
gone, so while it's great to have acts on the bill that recreate their styles, 
you need to bring in headliners from even other genres to sell tickets and 
bring their audiences which we include in OKOM.

PE:
 What is the magic number that will bring them back to our stages? 

TW:
Current realistic livable wages by today's standards, to offer for example a 
professional touring act the same money or less than they make playing in 
their own city or less than what other competent promoters are paying them because 
they know how much they are worth in ticket sales is not only an insult to 
the act, but it also shows the unprofessionalism of the organization asking 
them.  This is a very sophisticated area of business and if you don't prepare 
yourself for it you are destined for failure usually sooner than later.

If you analyze it carefully and professionally, you can justify it the same 
way your company justifies how much they pay you for your day job.

PE:
How are we going to come with that kind of money? 

TW
You honestly don't need any more money than you are generating already, you 
just need to know how and what to do to make what you have work better for you. 
 You only need seed money and then the know how of what to do with that seed 
money to insure as much as possible a bottom line to replace the seed money 
and retain enough annually to self perpetuate the event with surpluses.  Hence 
stop thinking non profit, it's OK to make a profit from a non profit operation, 
you just can't take the profit out personally.

PE:
 Who will buy Jubilee tickets to see these really great professional acts and 
how much
will *they* be willing to pay? 

TW:
You will never know if you don't raise the prices and convince them that you 
are doing so to bring them a better event.  Their price of gasoline and milk 
and bread, etc., goes up all the time, do they stop using it??   NO .   So does 
the price of gasoline that is needed to bring the out of town acts to your 
venues to sell the tickets and it saves money for your local patrons who do not 
have to travel out of town to see those good acts. 

The same folks that have been buying them for the past umpteen years and they 
will bring more friends to future events when they see it expanding and being 
a great event, and those new folks will bring new folks who will bring new 
folks etc.

Do you folks think Ford is still selling Fords to those folks who bought them 
in 1926, not very many of them because a lot of those folks are dead and 
gone, so what did Ford do go out of business, No they sold them to their kids and 
their kids and their kids friends, and their kids and their kids friends 
through continuous marketing and promotion of their PRODUCT.  Not only that they 
have met all the competition head on and still hold a fair market share of the 
customers buying autos.

How much was the cost of a Ford in 1926?    $500.00 ???

How much does a new Ford cost today?        $3,000.00 ???

It's all relevant, with the music product, an out of state or foreign act 
can't buy gas or airplane tickets to come and play Sacramento just because 
Sacramento or whatever festival has a ceiling price range on pay for all acts.  At 
the same time the reason for bringing in an act from out of town is to keep the 
market at home coming back to see new and different acts that they can't see 
for free every week at the local pub and local music series etc.

In the same vein, a local act that works any given date in the local market 
for $300.00 to $500.00 cannot justify asking $1,000. to $2000. to play the same 
town on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon just because it is a festival and they 
want a bigger piece of the pie.  The talent booker or buyer who would do this 
is simply not sophisticated enough to hold that position, a person who would 
buy any act under those circumstance and over pay them is not doing a service 
to the act or the organization.  That is the money that should be allocated to 
bringing the new and foreign acts to strengthen the events draw power and 
ensure that the local market continues to come out and support the event, which 
provides if done correctly enough profit to support their local acts for many 
more relevant gigs all year long.

PE:
I'm not an expert. I don't even promote *myself*. 

TW:

I am, and I do !  :)  40 years of doing it for a living for myself and 
others, and every act that showed up got paid what they were expecting to be paid as 
promised.

Well, shame on you Paul, :)   you should, you are a good player and have as 
much right to go out and do what you want to musically as anybody else,  don't 
wait for someone to find you and promote you,  that is a problem with many 
excellent musicians unfortunately, they are afraid to promote themselves, there 
is usually no other way to get recognition for your quality and services, and 
if you don't do so someone else will promote themselves right into all the gigs 
that could have been yours. 

PE:
But I can see that opportunities exists to grow a better, healthier market 
for OKOM. Some of your ideas will help.  Once again, I would invite you to jump 
in and help make it happen rather than stand on the sidelines and say, "I told 
you so."   

TW:
I made an attempt to do that a year ago and was ignored totally.

PE:
There are plenty of "advisors" but not so many folks who'll get things done.

And there has to *be* some money before we can even discuss who gets to keep
how much of it!

TW:
There Was "SOME MONEY"    much more money than what most Traditional 
societies will ever see much less hold in surplus and the Sacramento organization miss 
managed it all away and more.  For that there is no sympathy.  It went on far 
too long unchecked or stopped.  Try that where you work and see how long you 
stay employed.

PE:
You may be right. 
Tell you what, find us backers who'll put up the money to finance one of your
big-name acts, and we'll put 'em in all the best places we have.

TW:
You have more backers in your back yard that make money off the Jubilee that 
can and would back it if you had somebody who knew how to sell it to them and 
show them the benefits including profits they will make from doing so.  It 
simply has to be justified or it is like I said before just a big party for the 
local bands and a fatter payday for some, (maybe).

Your first Backer is the City of Sacramento, who benefits most, then all the 
local merchants, who make money off the event, not to mention the tax revenues 
the City takes in.  The payroll checks that get paid by the jubilee that 
could and should come from the City.  All issues need to be negotiated by someone 
who knows how to do it and get the desired results, Bottom-line, if you can't 
get it from the city and the merchants who benefit from your efforts, MOVE the 
event out of their reach and into a more workable marketplace.

You will be amazed at how quickly they come around to help you.

PE:
 But without backers, we simply can't afford to take the chance!

-- Paul Edgerton


Cheers,

Tom Wiggins