Harnessing
Verne Troyer
How to Ensure Celebrity Appearances Drive Business into
Your Club Without Driving you Crazy
By Jenny Adams
It’s as though a meteor landed at your
club. People are frantically texting
friends, urging them to hurry in to see
the star who just showed up. Patrons
pack the place like sardines, standing on
their tip-toes to peer over other club-goers to catch a glimpse of the celeb.
You’re sitting in the office smiling.
Of course, that’s only if you’re lucky
enough for a celebrity to happen to pick
your venue as the place to hang for a
night. For the average club owner, a
celebrity sighting is about as common as
that meteor. For the majority of bars and
clubs, stars only show up if hired, which
can be costly. Of course, the ROI comes
in properly marketing the appearance to
traffic and that all-important buzz about
your club being the “in” spot.
Trial and error in coordinating celebrity
events is one path to take, but it can
involve being left hanging without the
star at the last minute or not getting your
money’s worth. The other is learning
step-by-step from those who’ve perfected the art of the celebrity appearance.
Step 1: Budget Before
Prior to contacting any celebrity-booking
agency, it’s a good idea to sit down and
map out a rough budget. This helps to
determine what level of celebrity you can
afford, which may then alter your theme.
“We are not like L.A. and Las Vegas, with huge budgets,” says Diane
Corieri, partner in Evening Entertainment
Group, with venues Myst, Axis/Radius
and Suede all in Scottsdale, Ariz. “We
hire celebrities for special events or big
nights when there is some sort of event
in town, where we know there will be
enough of a crowd in the club to justify
the cost. We will plan the event and set
up a budget anywhere from two to three
months ahead.”
As with any promotion, supplier assistance can lessen the financial burden — as
well as help get better name celebs.
“Our largest event was with Bud Bowl,
and Snoop Dog came, P. Diddy was in
for a night and so was Kid Rock,” Corieri
says. “We worked with Budweiser [reps],
who actually worked on getting them in
here. It was very smooth, very professional and very easy.”
Of course, when you’re paying entirely from your own till, you’ll want to
consider value. “There are different levels
of celebs,” Corieri says. “It is A through
C. The C level you can get for $2,500 to
$5,000; the higher A range are $25,000
and up. On certain holidays you are going
to pay more, like New Year’s Eve. And if
you fall within their tour, you can usually
save some money there. We usually cover
flights, hotels and their fee, plus a dinner.”
For operators without a particular star in
mind at the outset, it can be helpful to start
with an established budget and then shop
for the right celeb through an agency.
“We research and recommend celebrities for each event or venue based on
the theme and budget,” says Jeffrey Yarbrough, CEO of bigInk PR and Marketing,
based in Dallas. Yarbrough has seen both
sides of the celebrity-booking fence, from
his current work in public relations, to his
former days as an owner of club venues
in Texas, including M Bar in Houston.
One man’s C-lister is another man’s
A-lister, depending on the demographic,
notes Yarbrough. A NASCAR driver
who would go unrecognized, perhaps,
at PURE in Las Vegas might pack the
house at another venue.
“With cable programming, there is a
large pool of celebrities in any genre you
could imagine, from fashion to fishing,”
he notes. “This now opens up celebrity
sightings at sports bars, pubs and bars,
not just mega clubs and ultra lounges.”
Step 2: Be Cautious
The industry bears no shortage of aggressive event promoters, and while many
are trustworthy, there’s no point in taking
a chance getting burned and being left
without the guest of honor — and a line of
eager, star-struck, paying customers at the
