THE ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT with Shane Cortese
The importance of a Publicist
It’s all very well spending thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars as was the case with Class of 58 National tours) on heartfelt productions and entertainment. But what you are relying on is the fact that people will shell out for a couple of hours of entertainment and see your hard work.
After all the costs have been carefully put into a spreadsheet, it’s the sensible and conservative calculation on how many people will pay for a ticket that produces your break even figure. In all my tours I have tried to work on a break even of 48%, of course that always stretches out to around 60% once incidentals and unexpected costs come in to play.
Now that may not seem a great deal, a “Half House” but over a series of concerts or shows it’s always a tight line.
You may have all the faith in the world in your show but that doesn’t matter if nobody knows that it’s on! So one of the areas of any entertainment budget that should not be ignored is the role of the publicist. They can make or break that bottom line.
Fortunately in New Zealand, and here on the shore, we have one of the best in New Zealand and Australia. Sandra “Skippy” Roberts has been publicising shows for years now. She comes from a journalistic background so putting together ‘Copy’ and getting it in front of the right editors, PR people, is easy for her.
I was introduced to Skippy seven years ago when she offered to publicise my first ‘Class of 58’ Show at the Bruce Mason Centre, as she wanted to help New Zealand artists get going and she believed in the concept.
It was her job to generate and manage publicity and get the show into the pages of newspapers and on magazine style TV Shows. Our first show had an 80% occupancy and the following tour averaged 70%. I would have had nowhere near that figure if I had tried to do it on my own.
As a result of our relationship, Sandra went on to be the publicist for ‘Cats’ at the Civic last year. The producer quite openly admits to reluctance in parting with the fee, until the show as a result of a fierce media campaign instigated by Sandra went on to be a critical and financial success with over 33,000 people seeing the production.
Sandra is now one of the most sort after publicists in Australasia. Along with her work in New Zealand she is also the chief publicist for the hit show ‘Jersey Boys’ – the Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber and the up coming ‘Rock of Ages’.
Theatre is as much a business as anything these days and return for dollar is reliant on having a great team on and off stage, A publicist – and Skippy in particular (Visit... www.skip.co.nz) – should be on the first page of any team sheet to make a show a success.
See you at the show!
Shane Cortese – shane@channelmag.co.nz
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