Casinos Are From Mars, Agents Are From Venus – Making The Planets Align

Shomes joined The Agency Group last year after running his own Day After Day Productions, which was dedicated to selling his clients to casinos. His move to TAG provided it with a casino division.  WME’s Joe Brauner, who books the Northeast, represented the agents’ side of the discussion.  When working with casinos, agents are either communicating with their in-house talent buyers (such as Deana Baker of Choctaw Event Center) or outside promoters (Michael Scafuto of M&M Group) or third-party buyers, which “speak agent” and communicate between them and several casino properties they book (Steve Seiden of Yapsody Entertainment and Scott Thomas of The Buzz Entertainment Group).

Shomes came armed with several intriguing questions, noting that in pre-panel discussions, one of the questions had already created a spirited discussion between Baker and Brauner. He noted this panel would not be like others and just ask if agents charge too much. Topics included generating offers, confirming offers, the contracting process, taking the show from confirmation to show day, and what the future holds.

“Non-casino venues are black and white in that they base their offers on a show’s potential,” Shomes asked. “Casinos are different on how they assess shows, and what offers should be made. For example, some casinos just want to break even at the box office. Some want to make money on ticket sales and some are OK on loss leaders if they feel if they’ll get the right gaming demographic in the building.  Do you as a buyer communicate effectively with the agent as to what is the basis of a successful show?”

The buyers didn’t respond to the question directly, considering they had the next hour and a half to answer it in as many ways as possible. Brauner, on the other hand, noted the communication has changed drastically in the past two years.

“The sexiness is gone,” he said.  “Stupid money was being offered, there was no second-guessing. You could take anything to the artist. It was a buffet.  But there was no way to sustain it. Now there are smaller market casinos or ones near major competition.  Now it’s about growing the business and developing trust.

“Not trying to say anything that sounds negative but it appears the new casino buyers don’t have a sense of our core business. They don’t know the clients, they don’t know the history. They don’t even know the markets they’re catering to. They’re just throwing a fishing line out.  ‘We’re just ‘looking to fill MLK weekend.’  Some of the buyers are not educated enough to make an offer, or know their market.  Their only interest is their boss said they need to fill a Friday or Saturday night.”

Some GMs book because of their personal likes, then a new guy comes along and wants to book R&B instead of classical music. It’s not what’s best for the building.  Even Seiden, who buys for 14 properties across the country, agreed.

“Some still work from the ‘unlimited buffet’ because it’s a model that works.  But some in the sticks are willing to lose money just so people will pay attention to them. Others want break-even. Others that lost money considered stopping entertainment.”

Shomes agreed that casinos are different in that some have in house buyers, some have exclusive third party buyers, and some use multiple nonexclusive. He asked what are the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Thomas buys for casinos that have a high entertainment budget, and some with budgets so tight that they will refuse to buy an act for $5,000 above their $25,000 limit even if it generated more traffic and profit.  This is where the advantage of a third-party buyer comes in.

“We like to tie in with artists that will draw a higher VIP,” he said. “So we brought in Joan Rivers and paid her$30,000. But to make it more profitable for Joan we had her sell her QVC jewelry on the casino floor. Because of that, marketing took half the hit, and the casino entertainment took the other half. So entertainment took only a $15,000 hit because Joan drove traffic to the floor.”

Seiden said the advantage of a third party was buying power. More properties equals better deals.

“Sometimes it’s not super popular with agents to put in offers contingent on multiple venues but, at the end of the day, an agency needs multiple dates,” he said. “I have to use my leverage to make the best deals.”

Steve Gietka – who bought entertainment for Trump Properties 23 years – is now a third party buyer himself, running his own SMG Entertainment, which handles three properties. Shomes found Gietka in the audience and asked his thoughts on in-house versus third-party, having now seen both sides of the coin. 

“Casinos don’t have a lot of bench strength on how to make entertainment decisions,” Gietka said. “Typically, the buyers know little about the business. As far as an outside company – if you can establish a level of trust with client, which is paramount, if they allow you to run with the ball – you can really make a difference because there are so many poor decisions made from inside. There is a lot of downsizing and stressed markets.”

Another question from Shomes: “Agents need to sell shows and buyers need to buy them, so why is it so hard to get the show confirmed?”

Baker, who’s on the receiving end of the confirmation wait, thought hard about it.

“Um … I don’t know!”  she said, bringing laughs.

Agents will call clients, desperately asking the buyers make an offer and, when they do, the deal sits unfinished for up to four weeks. Meanwhile, casinos have marketing plans that need to start 90 days before the shows but agents do not want to confirm early if a better deal arrives – according to the buyers on the panel, at least.  That’s why it was suggested that agents should be told there is a definitive deadline to confirm the show, even though they won’t like hearing it.

Shomes asked Brauner why a confirmation can take so long.

“After 31 years I still have no idea unless I’m the [responsible agent for the act].  I submit every offer to the RA. Truth is, the offers die because of the manager or client for whatever reason. I really don’t know why it takes so long.”

Another topic: Casinos have cut down on the extras – multiple hotel rooms, larger food & bev credits, golf, laundry. Is it ultimately effective or are buyers jumping over dollars to get to pennies when getting offers confirmed?

Thomas said state laws can be responsible for the liquor issue, and some properties do not have hotels so putting artists up for a night is more expensive. Seiden said some casinos cannot do multiple airport pick-ups because they’re anywhere from 45 minutes to four hours away from the airport. 

“It’s the artist’s responsibility to work within those confines,” Seiden said. “Every venue wants their artists happy; they just have to do it in a cost-effective way.”

It was noted that cutting food is difficult to sell to an artist when an agent is telling them they’ll get first-class treatment at a resort. However, the promoters argued it’s not fair to ask for it if the fees aren’t being reduced.

“Once a show is confirmed, do agents have the right to see the casino’s marketing plan?” Shomes asked. “Or, do casinos have the right to call their own shots without feedback from the artist’s side?”

“I think you have to have a marketing plan for every show, casino or non-casino,” Brauner said. “WME has an in-house marketing department, so does CAA. What is the marketing plan? What are the billboards?  If it gets to the confirmation stage, we try to get the marketing plan.  It’s good for the casino, it’s good for us. And if the client is difficult to work with, their bookings decrease.  I don’t want to hear a couple days before the show that it’s dying.”

Shomes asked, “If an agent wants to see how the show is going and what can be done to reach sellout, should the casinos be required to provide ticket counts that show detailed cash sales, comps and holds?”

To no surprise, Brauner said it was important – because many casinos are busing in old people, military personnel and others that are not there for the artist but are warm bodies to fill up space. “I don’t want to be in that business.”

Shomes said there was a casino that had a bad marketing plan and, “We were begging to do social media blasts, get management involved, get radio stations involved, etc., but the casino said no and the show underperformed.”

However, Seiden said that Shomes is a rare breed, noting he booked 200 shows last year and could count on two hands the times an agent called him to see how to help sell a show.

“So,” Shomes said, “if we ask for ticket counts we better be prepared to do something about it if the show’s not tracking well.

“We need to work together,” he added. “I saw once that a 1,000-capacity space was sold out, with 500 tickets sold, 500 comps but got reported to Pollstar as 50 percent sold. We need to work together. I promise you we want give you the confirmation as much as you want one.  We want to get our artists into casinos.”