By: Eric Fuller
I took the last week off from working on Rescue Meet ( https://www.RescueMeet.com ), my project to help the live entertainment industry regroup and resume because it just didn’t seem all that important when compared to the issues of life and death which were playing out live on television.
While reflecting over what I was witnessing, it occurred to me that live entertainment has long provided a safe place, open to all without precondition, where we shared experiences and emotions freely. When people root for their team, they become a community. When we all sing along to our favorite band, we’re joined in voice and in spirit. It’s in theaters and venues where we learn about different cultures and attitudes from the voices of those with microphones whom we’ve chosen to hear.
So, what do we do next?
I heard a great line on television last week: “There is no luck. There’s probability, plausibility and actuality. Luck is lazy math.” Doing the math is hard, but you can’t solve a problem until you capture all the variables. That’s what I set out to do with Rescue Meet, and it’s time to get back at it.
Here’s a highlight video of the two hour conference we held on May 19th, 2020.
On Tuesday, June 16th, 2020 we will hold three follow up sessions to discuss:
· 1) Sales and Marketing 9:00 am — 10:30 am PST
· 2) Technology and Ticket Distribution 11:00 am — 12:30 pm PST
· 3) Leadership and Management 1:00 pm -2:30 pm PST
Social change is coming. As it does, we will still need to be able to gather together again in joy at sporting events, concerts and theaters. There is a window of time to decide how we rehire the laid off workers at all levels of the entertainment world. There is a window of time to decide which events start where, and how we produce them while maintaining a safe environment while Coronavirus is still a risk. There is a window of time to consider our social obligations to keep events accessible to all across society and how we do that. But, that clock is ticking.
I believe there is a future for live events, and more than that, the act of going to live events is healing, transformative and sometimes inspirational to us individually, collectively and globally. We are talking with teams, leagues, promoters, venue operators and thought leaders. Join us. This project is about only one thing:
Somebody crowd me with love.
Somebody force me to care.
Somebody let me come through,
I’ll always be there,
As frightened as you,
To help us survive,
Being alive.
Being alive.
Being alive!
Stephen Sondheim — Being Alive
I’ve had the good fortune to interact with many of you either directly, at conferences, during group chats or through stories such as this one. I want you all to know that I believe in you, and I believe in this business. As my part of trying to help rebuild, I’ll be answering reasonable questions all month. That’s my way of contributing to solving this crisis. Just email, my address is below.
I’ll do my best to either answer you directly, or if I see certain questions repeat frequently I’ll post another article which goes over them all. I will not identify publicly the source of any question.
Let me know what you think.
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This post was originally published at Medium. It is republished here with the author’s permission.
About the Author
Eric Fuller is an $895/hour consultant advising leading companies in the live event space. If you are an investor, artist, promoter, team, producer, venue operator, primary or secondary market of ticketed events or have comments on this article, please don’t hesitate to contact me: [email protected]
