There Is Such A Thing As A Free Lunch

Pollstar recently published a story about World Wrestling Entertainment refunding the audience after a successful show. It was claimed to be a first. Not so, says veteran promoter Danny Scher.

To recap, the WWE, with Donald Trump playing along, created a scenario where Trump “bought” the wrestling conglomerate. He arrived at The Resch Center in Green Bay, Wis., during “Monday Night Raw” June 17 and told the audience he was the new owner. He apologized to the audience for all the poor entertainment “former” WWE chief Vince McMahon had provided them over the years. Because he is so darned rich, he could afford to give them a refund for the show that night, and he did. Well, the WWE did.

Sure, lousy shows get refunded but, as the building’s Kristie Haney told us, “This has got to be the first time in history that people saw the show, enjoyed the show and got a refund.”

We had no reason to doubt her. But, then again, there’s always somebody who reads these things and calls us on it. This time, it was Scher, a veteran of Bill Graham Presents who now runs DanSun Productions out of Berkeley, Calif. He was out of the country when we published the story but when he returned, boy, did he have something to say about it.

The story comes from approximately 1991. The scene is San Francisco, and Ray Charles is in the middle of his Diet Pepsi campaign. The TV commercials centered on his song “Uh-Huh,” and he was performing shows, for free, sponsored by PepsiCo Corporate.

“I was driving to the BGP office one day and I hear that Ray Charles, with his band, was doing a free concert, including lunch, on the roof of the Emporium,” Scher said. The Emporium was an upscale department store, eventually replaced by Bloomingdale’s. It was known to have events on its roof, such as a visit by Santa Claus every Christmas.

“Our office was two blocks from there. I parked my car and went up to the Emporium,” Scher said. “I bought every $8 ticket they had left. They had about 40 left, and it only held maybe a few hundred people. Then I go to the BGP office and I whisper to every woman there, ‘Hey, do you want to have lunch with me today? Don’t tell anyone but meet me in the lobby.’”

“So everyone starts congregating in the lobby. The show was to start at noon,” Scher said. “At around 11 o’clock I get a call from the promotions director at the Emporium. She says, ‘Danny, I don’t know what to do. We have this deal with Ray Charles [a clothes line sold at the Emporium]. He just found out we’re selling tickets and we’re not allowed to. He’s not going to go on.”

Scher pointed out that the lunch alone must be worth more than $8, but apparently Charles was already aware of that and didn’t care. He had a contractual obligation and he was sticking to it. So Scher suggested the promotions director call the local Pepsi distributor and see if it was willing to pay for the tickets.

Pepsi was game.

“I said, ‘Here’s what you do: You take their ticket on the way in, you rip it, you give them their half. When everyone’s seated, you say there was an advertising error and you’re going to give everyone their money back.’ Which is exactly what happened.”

Everyone saw a great show, enjoyed it, and got their money back. Scher gave his refund to Planned Parenthood.

More importantly – Pollstar story: Debunked.

“And by the way: the lunch was fantastic,” Scher said.