Celine Dion and The Invisible Elephant
Issmat A. | November 21, 2007Throughout all the commentary and articles dealing with the Celine concert cancellation in Halifax, I am yet to see anyone mention one obvious and major observation. So, at the risk of joining Jim Meek’s “Big No” crew, I will cast the first stone.
So far we have seen the blame and flame war claiming victims on both sides of the fence, from Celine’s husband and manager to the Mayor of Halifax. “The venue is inappropriate”, “Media was not friendly”, “She did not feel welcome”, “it was a conspiracy to pressure Quebec City”, those are some of the comments attempting to explain what happened.
What no one has emphasized on (as far as I have read) is how the people who decided to invite Celine Dion to Halifax are so utterly out of touch with the reality and pulse of the Halifax street. Who is holding those responsible accountable for this provincial embarrassment?
In any self-respecting city, heads will roll for such a poor decision for a major performance. With all respect to the artist and her accomplishments, a simple half-hour poll on Spring Garden would have been more than sufficient to let the decision makers know that Celine Dion does not hold much stock on the Halifax street compared to the slew of international artists on the options list.
This begs the question: Who makes the decisions? Are the decisions made by local professionals in the music and entertainment industry who are in touch with what people want to hear and know who’s hot and who’s not in Halifax today? Or is Halifax entertainment planning simply done by a staging and logistics company coupled with a few politicians?
This article reports that the parties involved were Gillette Entertainment Group (Montreal-based), Events Halifax, and City Council. None of the above is a local private-sector professional in the music entertainment industry who has the knowledge and the incentive of identifying the most popular attraction to bring to Halifax in order to make money on it. Infact, the description from the ‘About Us’ page of Events Halifax is:
“Events Halifax (Eh!) identifies events that are available for bidding and determines if Nova Scotia has a suitable event site. This decision is based on matching the needs of a specific event with available facilities, accommodations, venues and volunteer base.”
Do you see anything there about identifying what the public wants?
The comments of Celine’s husband may shed some light on the divide between how people IN Halifax think and how people who are disconnected from the culture and politics of the region look at us.
“I can understand that, you know, not everyone likes Celine. And believe me, I’ve seen a lot of bad press, a lot of bad reviews about either Celine’s shows or records, and this is part of the game. But I’ve never seen a reaction like that about Celine going to entertain.”
Mr. Angelil’s comments make sense if he is talking about a city that has a major show every month or so. In that case, people will definitely look at a Celine show as ‘another opportunity for entertainment’ and things wouldn’t be as emotionally charged. However, the reality is that Halifax has had only ONE major show per year over the past couple of years, two when we were lucky. Therefore, the public is extremely aware and protective when it comes to selecting shows because they know that’s the ‘it’ show for the year, so the choice better answer the entertainment needs of the MAJORITY of the demographic identified as ‘concert goers’.
So to everyone who has pointed the finger at the public for this one, I say don’t blame the customer for not buying your product. This is a supply and demand market, and if you don’t understand what the demand is, then you probably should not be in the business of supplying products to it.
Related posts:
Loading ...
(Copied from Chronicle Herald Blog Post) Hellooo; Enough already with the
Annie Veno | November 21, 2007(Copied from Chronicle Herald Blog Post)
Hellooo; Enough already with the Celine Dion saga… Is there ever going to be an end to this?? No performer out there is loved by everyone. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes. and there are performers who are racking up the charts all over the world that i wouldn’t accept a free ticket to go and watch. But at the same time we must all understand that famous as these super-stars might be, they are still only human beings with the same feelings as we all have…and Celine Dion does not ever have to lift a little finger to bend in a direction that she does not wish to..and bad publicity is hard to take..freedom of the press is another thing, but plain ignorance and ill manners is still something else..it does not give anyone the right to insult the talents of someone publicly and expect that there won’t be concequences in the end..ie..having the whole world talking about the bad mouthing of a super star coming to “Halifax Nova Scotia”…anyhoo…Sorry for Celine and her family if they have been hurt, and i say..way to go Celine Dion!!..and mr.blogster, dont be looking too hard for that white elephant..they’re extremely rare..
As far as I'm concerned, Halifax looks like a poor
Wanderer | November 24, 2007As far as I’m concerned, Halifax looks like a poor player in this one. Maybe locals are sensitive about their annual big show, but the media could have lamented a preference for other acts without attacking Dion herself. A critique of the promoter would have been much better and might have encouraged an investor to see an unmet demand and bring more music to the city. Now promoters will have to be wary to make sure they don’t offend the cultural gatekeepers of the city instead of opening the floodgates and bringing more shows. If the show was cancelled due to lackluster sales, your conclusion about supply and demand would be strong. Celine never had a chance.
Hello Annie and Wanderer and thank you for your comments.
Issmat A. | November 24, 2007Hello Annie and Wanderer and thank you for your comments. You make a good point and I agree with you. As I had mentioned in the Chronicle Herald, the point here is certainly not about who the artist is, but more so about the dynamics of the selection process.
If Gillette was going to fund the entire concert and keep the ticket revenue, then bring it on! Infact, bring 10 Celine Dion concerts. But when the artist representative asks for financial incentives from government organizations and city council, that’s when the public must be consulted because now if the concert flops and only 10,000 people show up, the public purse will take part of that hit. I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly enjoy giving up half of my life earnings every year in taxes only to see some of it being squandered due to bad business decisions or poor planning.
A private business can dump all its money into a failed concert and it would be nobody’s business or fault but their own for poor planning. But when that money is public money, you and I deserve to have the knowledge that the government representative/body assigned to make the decision of which acts to approve is qualified to do so.
To the Mayor’s credit (as well as Events Halifax), the story (as I understand it, and I could be wrong) is that Gillette approached the city with a proposal, not the other way around. So I guess each party did what they do best: the Mayor raised the proposal to council to consider how much the city should contribute to Gillette’s cost, and Events Halifax set about working on the logistics. The elephant that the decision makers fail to acknowledge here is the public and the lack of any process to identify and research what this elephant likes to eat.
I don’t claim to know what happens behind closed doors, but if these issues were infact raised and addressed appropriately at council, Events Halifax, or the Mayor’s Office, then someone is doing a poor job of communicating this massive piece of detail to the public.
Who exactly sat down and said “You know, I am fairly confident that the people of Halifax would LOVE to have a Celine Dion concert. Let’s do it!”.
The unfortunate part was watching the media make fun of
Wanderer | November 25, 2007The unfortunate part was watching the media make fun of Dion. I also recall a lame comment by the mayor that fit into this narrative. One newspaper used a cartoon of the Dion’s crying over Halifax headlines to stake their own moral authority as a shield to the criticism it must have received. Terrible.
(Copied from Chronicle Herald Blog Post) I think you hit the
T-Bird | November 27, 2007(Copied from Chronicle Herald Blog Post)
I think you hit the nail right on the head with this! I’ve heard so many different points of view about “what went wrong” and this about sums it up. The politicians in this city and the people in the city don’t seem to be in the same boat.