…you’re being overcharged.
In today’s New York Times, we learned that less than $8,000 from Lang Lang and Wyclef Jean’s fundraiser for Haiti at Carnegie Hall this Sunday will actually go to disaster relief, and not just because some of it will go to Wyclef’s mistress.
Even if the event’s nearly $200,000 worth of tickets sell out, less
than $8,000 from the sales will go to the cause. The concert, though,
is expected to raise some money, thanks mainly to a $50,000 subsidy by
the Montblanc company and $10,000 by CAMI Music, the concert’s
presenter and Mr. Lang’s management agency. Montblanc had promised to
help pay for the concert well before it was transformed into a benefit,
a decision made at Mr. Lang’s request. The performers, including Mr.
Lang, are waiving their fees.
The more important morsel from this article, at least for the purposes of a classical music PR blog, is that there appears to be a publicist out there willing to handle the press for a major Carnegie Hall fundraiser for a $70 fee:
$70 for a press representative? To…stand in the lobby and hand out press tickets for a half hour? To…write part of a press release? To…click “send” on a pre-written press release? $52,000 in ads and $70 on a publicist? And then there’s this amazing line at the end the paragraph: “Some costs are estimates, the presenters emphasized, and could be less.” Less?? Who is this publicist? I want to tell all the young artists I know! Heck, maybe I need a publicist myself.
It is obvious that raising funds for Haiti wasn’t the real motivation for this concert at Carnegie. It might be interesting to contrast this approach with Metropolis Ensemble’s sold-out benefit at LPR on Valentines Day. All 23 musicians donated their performances and 100% of ticket, CD and t-shirts sales were donated raising nearly $7,000 for Partners in Health who have been providing health care for 1/3 of Haiti’s citizens for the past 25 years.
This just shows that there are greedy bastards elsewhere than Wall Street in NYC.
This is a perfect illustration of what is wrong with the US today.
Amanda, I took that sentence in the NYT to mean that $70 is the itemized portion of the charges for renting Carnegie Hall that covers the services of someone in Carnegie’s press office, just as $750 is for the services of Carnegie’s box office and $210 is for paying ushers (or somebody) to put inserts into Playbills.
And $70 for whatever bits of work a Carnegie staffer does for a benefit presented by a renter isn’t unreasonable either way, is it? (I presume that CAMI is handling most of the press relations in-house.)
Am I right about that? Maybe someone from Carnegie will write in (anonymously?) to confirm or deny this.
Sounds like there are pieces to the puzzle missing. I will say, though, that I have always had full faith in the David Foster Foundation. David, a personal friend and colleague, has done a remarkable job with his staff to raise millions of dollars for his causes. One must be very careful in doing this, and not just done in a quick manner. These things take time and proper organizational skills to assure success.
Not to mention…$52k for advertising in the NY Times????!?!? To sell LANG LANG??!??!?! Someone is not being very marketing savvy if they are spending that kind of money. Tickets for that concert should walk out the door.
@Nate — my impression was that the Haiti bit was an add-on long after this concert was planned — this concert has been on many presenters’ schedules for over a year, long before the Haiti earthquake. It seems that they would have more successful had they been more transparent, e.g., $5 of each ticket will go toward…
Hmmm. Funny math. Lang Lang is waiving his fee, and only $8,000 is going to Haiti. Maybe he should just donate the fee (which I’m pretty sure is considerably higher than $8,000!) directly to Haiti.