One of the edification spinoffs from being in the entertainment business is the number of lessons one learns that prove very useful in other businesses or circumstances. As an example, one of the things that I heard stressed by promoters I encountered as I got into the music business overseas was “To get the show right, get the venue right.” This principle had nothing to do with the artistic abilities being presented in the event, but rather on the non-musical conditions, the surroundings being a prime one, impacting on the audiences, that are critical to a successful event. They would include a number of factors – ticket prices; comfortable seating; lighting; acoustics; ushers; security; toilet facilities; easy affordable transportation to site; adequate parking; refreshment services, etc – each of which is crucial to the event and each of which contributes to patrons’ choices on future shows being planned for the site. In a phrase, good venue plus good performance equals successful show, now and in the future.
I recall from many years ago a Tradewinds performance in St Lucia, an island where the band was very popular and always drew large crowds. On the night of this particular show, as we arrived at the Palm Beach Club venue in Castries, I was shocked to find the hall almost deserted, while there was a large mob of people jamming the road outside.
They saw us go in, they called out to us, there was the usual cheerful St Lucian banter, but they remained outside. I asked the promoter, my friend, the late Bobby Clarke, what was going on. Bobby laughed. “Don’t worry with that. They had some shows here recently where the people paid to come in, but the band didn’t play, so this crowd ain’t buying one ticket until they hear the band start.” Tradewinds began playing to a virtually empty hall, but at the sound of the first note there was this flood of mankind rushing the gate; in 15 minutes the hall was jammed and rocking.
It was a very visual and very striking message: the venue had become tainted in the public’s eyes and, popular band or not, different promoter or not, they were just not paying their money to the Palm Beach Club until their concerns had been allayed. Critical in all this was that Bobby Clarke, aware of the venue problem, knew how to fix it – before the show.
It is, of course, a strategy that one can apply in other businesses or other undertakings, if one sees the different “venue”, or set of circumstances, if you wish, that exists and considers the impacts of those parallel factors. A prime example is contained in a recent letter to this publication by Sharon Maas (SN, November 27) in which she points out that Guyana’s inclusion on the National Geographic Magazine’s “Top 21” places-to-visit list is compromised by the garbage/litter conditions in Georgetown. To use the analogy I am making: to a visitor coming here on holiday, the venue is Guyana, and, though she uses different terms, Sharon is essentially saying that certain parts of the venue are not close to ready for the tourism show.
To take this further, the venue for the tourism patron here is deficient not only in the garbage collection in town mentioned by Sharon Maas. It is deficient in the frequency and choice of airlift to the destination; it is deficient in our shortage of high-quality restaurants, and in our problematic utility services; we don’t have a relatively crime-free city, or one, as I write this, where there is no flooding from heavy rain. I am sure readers can add items to this list of deficiencies, but the point remains that our tourism show is going to be very significantly stymied if we don’t set about fixing the problems in the venue and in its conditions.
The show-business dictum, in fact, can be applied with good effect in encounters of all kinds. It applies virtually across the board in our business sector here. Companies which are ostensibly engaged in getting consumers to pay for products or services are often casual, or indifferent, indeed even rude, to those very potential customers. The venue, in this case business premises, is often a negative environment.
My recent experience with a purchase at Courts on Main Street, involving a sales person named Sameera Hassan, and her supervisor Pamela Humphrey, was one of courtesy, prompt attention to a problem, and general concern for the customer. That sort of experience is not very common in Guyana. Often, the scenario in many business venues here is one that leaves you, as a patron, disgruntled and unwilling to return if alternatives for that product or service can be found.
Currently, in another arena, Guyana is seeing political turmoil between our government and the opposition that has produced stalemates, or at least deferrals, on a number of projects which seemed to be important for our progress. If we think of the venue in which our national deliberations take place, where we stage our political show, it is clear that something is very much amiss there in the polarization that has developed between these two competitive groups, and if that fundamental impediment remains, the political “show” is going to have limited success, or, perhaps, even become further gridlocked, if that is possible. Reference can be made to the USA, where a similar Republican/Democratic refusal to compromise was taking its toll, but at least, there, some influential persons intervened to get the show back on the road, even if only temporarily.
Here, the persons involved in our political manoeuverings seem to believe that the intransigent position is not an impediment to what ultimately is presented in our Parliament, and, therefore, to eventualities for the nation.
Those who hold that view might want to consider the show business analogy: that the next time you take your show on the road, the crowd lined up to support you may be disappointingly small.
Whether one is looking to sell a ticket to a musical performance in Castries, or seeking to attract an election vote in Guyana, or trying to increase the numbers in our tourism plants, the principle holds: fix the problems before the show.
