Ken Davenport - Opinions from a Broadway Producer

The next advancement in scenery . . . none.

A friend of mine who stays up on the latest in all sorts of technology sent me a link the other day for a projection-like company called ViXen, which is marketing a "visual performance system".  Check it out here.

My favorite part of their non-fancy website for such a fancy tech company is this quote:  "We invite any requests or ideas and we will work with our extended community of colleagues to source and/or develop a solution that can accomplish almost any design."

In other words . . . "tell us what you want to do and we're pretty confident we can deliver it."

My early adopter friend suggested to me that there might be theatrical applications for their technology.  "Sure," I said.  There aren't many new shows that open up without a "Projection Designer" on the title page of the Playbill these days. (And we wonder why costs are escalating, we keep coming up with new types of professionals needed on shows, but we're not getting rid of any in the process!)

Remember last year's Tony Awards?  There weren't many sets.  Most shows used a sort of projection/LED combo on a light wall to get their bright-lite-like point across.  And it worked, looking great and saving lots of bucks (not to mention lumber) in the process.

Do you think that we could be on our way to sets being entirely replaced by electronic representations?  In 20 years will it all be projections?  Will every theater come with screens, for you to light up as you wish?

And, will this make it possible for many, many, many shows to share the same space?

Oooooh, now there's the most compelling reason for the adoption of this type of tech in some theaters.  With the flip of a drive, you could have an entirely different "set" of projections for a 2nd or 3rd show that split the rent.

While I don't think sets will ever disappear (nor should they), in the same way that I don't think orchestras will ever disappear (nor should they) no matter how much technology we come up with that simulates the same experience, I do think we'll see a bunch of shows that rely solely on projections in the next 10-20 years.

Seeing a set might be rare.  

But if that's what it takes to keep people seeing shows, I'm fine with it.

 

 

(Got a comment? I love 'em, so comment below! Email subscribers, click here, then scroll down, to say what's on your mind!)

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I spy a new . . . Telecharge.com!

It's been talked about for years, and it looks like the new Telecharge.com is almost here!  And it features 3-D seat maps, video content, and a whole bunch more.

It's in Beta now, so it's not done yet, but the Ticketing Gods over at Telecharge are allowing the public to poke around the new system to see what they think . . . and to get feedback (which I'm counting on all of you to provide in the comments below - I'll then pass it on to them in an effort to make the great work they've already done even better).

Ticketing and accessibility were talked about a great deal at last week's TEDxBroadway, so the t-t-timing of this launch couldn't be better.

Ready to see it?  Are you ready?  

Visit Beta.Telecharge.com.

Then come back and comment on what you think.

Oh, and while you're there . . . buy a ticket to something.  

 

(Got a comment? I love 'em, so comment below! Email subscribers, click here, then scroll down, to say what's on your mind!)

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Playbill goes Boffo with its brand.

The battle of the Broadway websites just got real, yo.

Playbill.com could sit back and stay fat on its yellow striped cover and trademarked font and still have more traffic than the 405 in LA.

But no . . . ever since young Turk-ish Blake Ross took the reins years ago, Playbill has been operatin' like a startup, adding new features left and right and all the way 'round.

And two of those features are turning a lot of heads.

Less than two months ago, Playbill released The Playbill Vault, an online database of every Broadway show and everyone associated with those shows since 1930.  And, what's cool about it is that it combines the stats with other material from their database (photos, articles, actual playbill listings, etc.)  Look at my listing to see an example here.  It's pretty awesome, and has already become my go to .com when I'm researching . . . anything (Sorry, IBDB).

And, not resting on its e-laurels, last week Playbill announced the acquisition of Boffo Box, now named Playbill Professional, an online "theatrical index" with Broadway grosses, charts, an online rolodex for Broadway personnel, and more.  Unlike the Playbill you get when you walk in a theater, Playbill Pro ain't free.  But time is money, and this system looks like it'll save some folks hours.

The mission statement at Google is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Well, we here in the theater industry have never been good at doing anything with our information.  Thankfully, Playbill.com has stepped up, adopted the Google plan, and given a lot of people a lot of info.

And a lot of info makes us a lot smarter.

(Oh, and yeah, they're probably going to make money with it.  But that's what great companies do.  They find out what people want/need that they aren't getting elsewhere and give it to them.  And they make some money.  And the really great companies then use that money to find new things that people want/need that they aren't getting elsewhere and give that to them.  And rinse and repeat and growth for all.)

 

 

(Got a comment? I love 'em, so comment below! Email subscribers, click here, then scroll down, to say what's on your mind!)

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Do people really finance shows from Kickstarter? Results revealed!

It has been almost two years since I blogged about the kickstart of Kickstarter (read the original post here).    
There's no question that this previously little and now big dot-com has had a serious impact on how money gets raised for all sorts of different types of projects.  (And hey, it was one of the inspirations for The People of Godspell.)

But just how much money has been raised?

Kickstarter released a whole bunch of stats on their blog this week, announcing to the world not only that they've received over 100 million bucks in pledges over their short life span, but also breaking the pledges down by categories.

So how did theater do?  Here are the results:

There have been 931 successfully funded Kickstarter projects which were backed by a total of 50,144 people.  (And I bet a lot of those 50,144 could be converted into commercial theater investors if we could talk to them).  

These 50+ thousand folks have put up $4,051,962.62.  And counting.

Pretty good, right?  (You can see the results of the other categories here - including film, which took in 8x the amount that we did.)  What these stats say is that, raising money is hard, Kickstarter has made it easier.

And you know what's really cool?  Without Kickstarter, many of these projects would never have happened, and that money wouldn't have gone back into our economy.  Yep,  Kickstarter has had an economic impact.  And it is sizeable.

So should you Kickstart your show?  Well, sure, if it feels right for you, then do it. 

But the challenge is that because so many Kickstarters are out there now, you have to be even more creative in attracting donors . . . especially ones that you don't know (they have a lot of serial funders on Kickstarter, including one guy, who pledged money to more than 700 projects).  

But you can do it. 

Thanks for the help in helping so many artists and producers, Kickstarter.  Hopefully your success will kick Congress in the butt to allow a just-as-easy for-profit crowd-funding soon enough.

 

(Got a comment?  I love 'em, so comment below!  Email subscribers, click here, then scroll down, to say what's on your mind!) 

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Why some brokers get a bad name.

Whenever something is scarce and has value, there will always be a way for resellers to profit from it.  Diamonds, Elvis Presley Autographed Toilet Seats, and yes, theater tickets.

That preface is me admitting that ticket brokers, who traffic in tickets in the secondary market (e.g. tickets which have already been purchased through Ticketmaster or Telecharge and are now being resold), will always exist in our world.  

And, frankly, there is a place for them.  They fill the need for a certain type of consumer who needs a certain thing (tickets to Hugh Jackman for tomorrow night, let's say), needs it now (the show is tomorrow night), and will pay anything for them (how's about $421.80/ticket).  

So I'm not anti-broker.

I'm just anti Bad Broker.

A dear friend of mine suffered at the hands of a BB recently that had me wanting to call the BBB.  She had a hankering to take a client to see Book of Mormon real bad like, so she googled and found one of the many sites hawking BoM tickets in the secondary market.  She clicked away, and then next thing you know, she had purchased two crappy seats for $200+ each.

She made her way to the box office only to find that her tickets weren't there.  And, tick-tock, there was only another 15 minutes to curtain.  In the fine print, she found out that her tickets were supposed to be picked up at some shady office in midtown.  She sprinted to the "drop" and found . . . her tickets weren't there either.

"Oh, sorry.  We never got these tickets," the BB said.  

"But it says that I'm confirmed."

"Yeah, sorry."

"But . . . "

"We didn't get the tickets. What can I say, lady?" 

My friend, and her client, exhausted and frustrated by the experience altogether . . . skipped the theater and just went to dinner instead.  

When I heard the story I knew that she had fallen prey to one of the many not-so-scrupulous brokers who have taken advantage of technology to speculate on tickets . . . and advertise something they try to get their hands on AFTER they sell it.

And often times, the bad BBs fail.

And the theater as a whole, suffers.

Don't just listen to the squeaky wheels on social media.

One of the greatest gifts Twitter has given brands is the ability to electronically eavesdrop on conversations about their products.

"@XXX airlines sucks!  Waited for three hours on tarmac!"

"Just waited for 1.5 hours for my pizza from @XXXX."

"XXXXX Actor is out of today's matinee of @YYYYY.  #disappointed"

The smart brands have seized the twitter-portunity to reach out, respond to these disgruntled patrons, and reversed what could have been negative word of mouth.

Or in other words, "The squeaky tweet gets the seed."

But the really smart folks aren't only focusing on the negative comments on Twitter and Facebook.  The best marketers that troll tools like Hootsuite, are not only looking for any customers with complaints, but they are also looking for the people that are electronically raising their hands and saying, "I love this NAME OF PRODUCT!"  

Think about it . . . if a person feels so inclined to electronically announce that they "like" a product or service, that's a pretty important customer, don't you think?

And it's just polite for you to say, "Thank you!"  Or "Glad you enjoyed it!" or . . . "COME AGAIN!"

Or grab their info, put it on a list, and save it for a rainy day when you want some ambassadors doing your bidding, because odds are these folks will.  

It is always important to focus on customers who publicly air a product or a show's dirty laundry . . . but don't forget about the people that love what you've produced.  If you're lucky, there are a lot more of them.  And if you're smart, you can use them to your advantage to drown out the others.

 

(Got a comment?  I love 'em, so comment below!  Email subscribers, click here, then scroll down, to say what's on your mind!) 

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New feature: The most read posts of the month.

I'm obsessed with Google Analytics. I even have a Analytics app for my iPhone so I can constantly keep track of all of the web stats on all of my sites.

One of the most important statistics I look at for the blog is what articles are the most read every month.  By doing so, I can see what you like, as well as what you don't like, and I can tweak what I talk about going forward. If you like budget-talk, I can try and do more of that. If you like blogs about box offices, I can do more of that.  If you hate when I talk about fast food . . . well, I'm going to keep doing that anyway.  

I got to thinking that you might enjoy seeing what the most popular blogs of the month are, which is why I'm debuting a new feature today!  (And I also thought this might help any of you folks that may have missed a post or two throughout the month.)

So, every month I'm going to publish a recap that will list two posts:  

1. The most read post of the month.
2. The most commented on post of the month (see what riles people up).

So, here they are for November:

• The Most Read:  You Make The Call:  Which Show Would You Produce?
  
  
• The Most Commented On:  What Every High School Musical Should Have.
  

See you in a month! 

 

How I get my theater news.

If you enjoyed yesterday's blog, then you shouldn't thank me. You should thank Mr. Thomas Cott.

Tom has worked in a lot of areas in the entertainment industry over the last 25+ years, from marketing to producing to fundraising and so on. He's an incredibly dedicated believer in spreading ideas and information in order to encourage education, which by its nature encourages change.  

Tom runs a news clipping service called "You've Cott Mail," where he serves up a handful of the day's most interesting arts related articles from publications, blogs, newsletters, etc. from around the globe.

It was in a recent edition of "You've Cott Mail" that I discovered the article that I blogged about yesterday, hence the props due to Tom.

If you're not signed up on Tom's list, visit his site and click on the link on the left for YCM.  You'll be glad you did.  "You've Cott Mail" is a like a vegetable that tastes like french fries.  It's oh-so-good for you and should be consumed daily, but it also tastes great going down.

And if you're looking for more than a handful of the day's articles, then make sure you bookmark supersite, www.BroadwayStars.com, started by one of the original theater bloggers, James Marino.  All of the news that's fit to type is on that site.  I refresh the page about 30 times a day looking for the latest news.

Consuming news in the 21st century is not like it used to be when you had one paper, or one TV channel.  The best news sources are like giant buffets, serving up dishes of all different types and temperatures from all over the world (e.g. HuffPo).

"You've Cott Mail" and BroadwayStars are the two of the best buffets in town.  And I gorge myself at both every day. 

People are talking about you behind your back. And now, you can listen.

Bad word of mouth is like a little forest fire.  

Get enough bad word of mouth and those little fires will combine and be on your doorstep, smoking you out of house and theater, before you can say, "Smokey The Bear." 

Since so much word of mouth occurs online these days, there are several online "smoke detectors" that can help you monitor your word of mouth and online reputation.  

And if you're smart enough, you can actually throw some water on those fires, extinguishing them before it's too late (insert scary fire music here).

Here are three "smoke detectors" you should be using to monitor what people are saying about your shows, and an example of how we've used them here in my office.

1.  The Google Alert

The Google Alert is the classic detector. Sign up, tell Google the word, phrase, etc. you'd like to track, and it will send you a daily email of all the web sites with that word, phrase, etc. in it.

Put in your show's name (and any variation), your name, your theater's name, whatever, and let Google do the work.  Or, put in the name of a competing show . . . he-he-he.

How have we used it?  

We've used Google Alerts to find good reviews, both in the 'traditional' press and from the new media corps (bloggers).

But most recently, a Google Alert sounded an alarm about a a rogue and unauthorized production of The Awesome 80s Prom.  We were able to react swiftly and shut them down before any damage was done to the brand.  Thank God for Google, because we were about to enter into an agreement for The Prom in the same city!  That Google Alert saved that deal, without a doubt.

2.  Tweet, Tweet.

Thanks to Twitter, there's a new type of online conversation going on now.  Luckily, there are ways to monitor it.  Twitter has a search function which pulls up recent activity on any word or phrase that you're interested in. 

Since tweeting doesn't take much time or commitment, your brand is much more likely to appear all over Twitter than in more full length blogs or articles. Just click here to see all the recent random tweets about Altar Boyz!

In addition to the Twitter search function, there are a bunch of third party search applications like Monitter, etc. that are tracking the T-world. Here's a blog that discusses a few.

How have we used it?

We find out who's tweeting about us, then follow them with our Twitter and encourage those same peeps to follow us.  Presto.  We've now established one-on-one communication with someone we know has an interest in our brand, and are building a Twitter army.

3.  Manual Labor

This is the hardest and most time intensive but, regardless of all the auto-detectors out there, I still recommend having someone on your team doing walk-throughs of potential "danger areas." There's nothing better than a Forest Ranger sniffing around every once in a while.  

Put someone on trolling the message boards on Talkin' Broadway, BroadwayWorld, and BroadwaySpace.  Search the site pages for your title (use the "Find On This Page" option in your browser menu).  

How have we used it?

In previews for 13, I used this detector to find similar comments of both praise and criticism.  If one person says something on a message board, it's not as important.  But find 3 people saying the same thing, it deserves further thought (regardless of whether or not you agree).

The biggest of brands out there are all monitoring online activity.  Starbucks, Jet Blue, and so on.  And why shouldn't they?

After all, it has been said that the greatest leaders are the greatest listeners.

It's just time we listen with more than our ears.

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The Blogger Social is tonight! 

Got an idea for a show? Here's the first thing you should do.

Buy the domain name.

That's right . . . I don't care whether it's a new play you've written or an old play that you want to revive.  Before you breathe a word of it to anybody, go to a site like www.GoDaddy.com and snatch up the domain for less than the cost of an extra value meal . . . and sit on it.  

Maybe the show won't happen, or maybe it'll take five years, but I guarantee you the cost of the domain today will be less than the cost of the domain tomorrow.

Because if you don't grab it, someone else will.

There's a bunch of very savvy businessmen and women out there who have made a bunch o' bucks buying and trading domains like they were derivatives, and benefiting Broadway from producers who fail to buy up their rightful domains before their new musical or new play leaks to the press.  I'm sure these 'cybersquatters' read Playbill.com more religiously than I do, just waiting for the announcement of a new reading or the rights of a project being sold (go on . . . visit www.InTheHeightsMovie.com . . . do you think that's Universal Pictures sitting on that domain)? 

The truth of the matter is . . . it may be illegal for these cybersquatters to sit on something that is rightfully yours.  The infamous "Simpson Movie Suit" between Fox and a squatter who bought TheSimpsonsMovie.com set a precedent that individuals having no legitimate business interest in the domain name could not keep it from those that did.

The problem with the law?  It moves very slowly.

So here's what usually happens:

• Producer decides too late that they want a domain.
• Producer finds it's already gone.
• Producer contacts squatter to try and obtain it.
• Squatter wants cash.
• Producer's show opens in a few months and has no time (or money) for a lawyer to take the case to the World Intellectual Property Organization, so Producer does one of two things: 
  
  • Producer pays (anywhere from $100 - $1,000 and some tickets)
  • Producer chooses inferior domain and the "right" domain stays in possession of someone else.  And that squatter is not happy.  And they decided to, oh, I don't know, point the site to the negative NY Times review of the show.  Check out www.GuysAndDollsOnBroadway.com.

Either way you pay . . . in cash or by the loss in marketing value from not having the prime domain.  Web addresses are exactly like street addresses.  And different streets have different values.  Your show is like your home. I don't care how beautiful it is . . . you also want it on the right street in the right neighborhood, don't you?  That means it needs the right domain.

So go get your domain.  Frankly, I'll even let you stop reading this blog right now to go buy it.  Go. I'll be here when you get back.

 . . . 

Good, feel better?

Now what do you do if you find out it's already gone?  

Look for alternatives, or start the process of trying to get it back.  If you've got time and a lawyer on your show on retainer already, make that lawyer work to get it back.

If you don't, and you simply must, must, must, have that domain like it's a new kidney and you don't have any time, then try to cut a deal.  The good news is that most of the guys I know who deal in these domains are pretty reasonable (I can say that because, unfortunately the web design and marketing arm of Davenport Theatrical has had to acquire a few premium domains over the years from shows so big you wouldn't believe).  The Squatters know that legally they may not have ground, so they'll cut a decent deal making things easier for everyone. And remember, they're dealing in perishable inventory. Once a show starts marketing an alternative domain like Guys and Dolls did, the other names lose value.  Sure, the squatter on the G&D domain mentioned above may feel good about sending traffic to the Times review, but that's not making him any money.  In fact, he's losing . . . 

But remember, every time you settle, you actually encourage the squatter to repeat the process since it was a successful venture for him/her.

The simpler answer is to snatch up your name faster than you can saw w-w-w.  Cuz if you don't, you'll be, well, to bastardize a Loesser lyric:  "under the thumb of some little . . . squatter."

In fact, one of my peers out there didn't grab the domain for the show that he's planning on bringing to Broadway in the next 2 years.  

Don't worry, Mr(s). X.  I bought it for you. :-)

And no, no, before anyone gets any ideas . . . don't worry.  I have no desire to sell it for a profit.  That's not what I'm about.  I'll be happy to hand it over.  

I just didn't want it sitting on someone else's servers where they could ransom it for cash.

Because God knows, Broadway shows don't need yet another unnecessary expense line on their budgets.

Oh, and while you're buying your show's domain, buy your actual name at the same time.  

Otherwise, this could happen to you.  

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Only 10 Days until the 1st Theater Bloggers Social!

Thursday, April 23rd.

6 PM

Planet Hollywood

For more info and to RSVP, click here.