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Thornton’s NW Revolution
When Creston Thornton sold his old company, Bravo Entertainment, along with his Big Easy nightclubs to
He was at the end of a four-year noncompete and was developing land in the Northwest, particularly in Idaho, when the economy slowed down and Thornton decided it was time to get back into the game. He started CT Touring and resumed booking shows at
In addition to having just completed a third season at Eagle River, Thornton is now booking shows at the
But he is adamant he’s not reinventing the model he built with Bravo Entertainment.
“By the time we sold Bravo, we’d done 450 shows a year in 19 states, developing it from basically selling 100 tickets to punk shows to bringing in
He’s keeping a slower pace with a smaller staff now, and that suits him.
“We decided we’re not going to do like we used to, with 450 shows a year; we decided to try 80-100 shows in the Northwest as they make sense,” Thornton said. “And we did a whole run of dates with
“We found a great spot that was a big old building. We went in and completely refurbished it, put in tons of steel, did everything that we couldn’t do before when we had some constraints,” Thornton explained. “We have 700 parking spaces on site, two loading docks, three full band green rooms, two VIP shower and bathrooms. It’s the right size, and we can configure it to 1,000 or 1,500.
“We’ve had a lot of success already with Joe Walsh, who opened it.
The latest “get” for the Revolution is EDM superstar
“We’re trying to do things differently up here,” Thornton said. “We have a great room – more than twice the size and like nothing else in this market. And we’re doing things differently with ticketing. We’re working with the agents on this, in our belief Groupon and all these discounts have really hurt the concert business.
“What we’re building into our offers up front, and we’ve done this for three years now, is a tiered ticketing system. We are actually trying to reward the consumer for buying tickets early instead of alienating the fan who bought the ticket early by offering them for half off later. What we’re trying to do is get the fans out early and reward them.”
In his tiered ticketing offers, fans buying in the first hours or days of an onsale get the best prices – what might start as a $10 ticket at onsale might increase to $25 the next week and $35 the week after that, as just one example.
“We’re really trying to generate excitement and rewards. We’re also doing all our EDM shows, like Steve Aoki and
“You’re absolutely teaching the consumer to wait, and that’s hurting the business in general. Your advertising dollars are wasted in the beginning, you have to spend more at the end, when the best way to market a show is to have a ticket in the fan’s back pocket.”
With business positively humming at the Revolution Center, Thornton’s got an eye toward the 2013 summer season at Eagle River Pavilion. He says the plan is to promote eight to 10 shows at the Idaho Center amphitheatre and continue promoting shows in Missoula, Mont., and in North Dakota. But the grind of hundreds of shows in almost 20 states is over.
Thornton learned that when he sold Bravo. But he also saw the concert business from the outside – through a fan’s eyes.
“I had three kids in 14 months – and that’s after trying for three years. It was definitely the right time to take a break,” Thornton said. “Being able to watch it from the outside is where a lot of the ticketing ideas came from. Really, the consumer has not been rewarded for being the first in line.
“The thing we get now is, ‘When do the tickets go on sale?’ and I’ll say, ‘The tickets already are on sale.’ And it’s, ‘No, when do the tickets go on sale.’ It happens all the time. It’s like we’re Nordstrom’s, and it’s the end of the season rack sale.”
There’s a cliché that there’s no second acts in America, but Thornton is disproving that.
“We’re supposed to be a competitive country, so I think starting a new business with some changes and a new model and learning from your past, is a way to do things.”