Lessons Learned: John Page

One of the biggest challenges a new facility manager faces is placing holds with promoters. I learned early on that a "promoter hold" is different than an "artist hold." Two promoters might have a hold for the same night but that doesn’t mean they’re holding the date for the same artist.

Early in my career, I released the date from the first promoter and gave it to the second promoter. I assumed the date would be for the same artist. I quickly learned that once a promoter has a date, the promoter can do anything with it as long as the deposit is put down and the booking policy is accepted. Meanwhile, that first promoter can still bring the desired act into the marketplace on that night.

At that time, I was very fortunate to be able to rely on my mentor (Comcast-Spectacor President) Peter Luukko who coached me through the process and all was quickly resolved. He still is a great mentor and one from which I seek advice quite often.

A GM kind of learns the hard way. It’s important to me to share these experiences so they don’t have to go through the pain I did. It takes a new facility manager a full, one-year booking cycle to learn all of the issues. A lot of new GMs are aggressive and will book family shows close to each other, or country shows close to each other, which could violate protection clauses.

As you go through the business and you go through different roles, making mistakes, it affords you the opportunity to share your experiences. It makes you a better liaison with a promoter so you can work through these issues. And that’s what we’re fortunate to do here with our management company and with Global Spectrum. We spend time coaching our GMs who might be booking for the first time understand what to do and what not to do.

John Page is COO of Global Spectrum