The FINANCIAL — Eastern Promotion, one of the leading showbiz agency plans to make great reconstructing works in the Philharmonic. Company representatives told FINANCIAL the facade of the building, floor, and seats will be changed, heating and conditioning systems will be mounted by next year and the Georgian people will supposedly have the new concert hall by Autumn 2008. Meanwhile Art Forum will establish an organization which will control the intelligence properties of famous singers. The company also intends to create a new festival, far different from the Jazz Festival which is organized by Eastern Promotion.
According to Misha Giorgadze, the Director of Eastern Promotion, the founders of the company participated in organizing the first international Tbilisi Jazz Festival – “Inter Jazz ’89”, where eight groups from the USA participated (among them: Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard, Sun Ra, Les McCann etc).
“Today Eastern Promotion is busy with planning reconstruction and the Tbilisi Jazz Festival will not be held in 2008 as the concert hall will be closed down,” Giorgadze declared to The FINANCIAL.
According to Kakha Tsiskaridze, the Founder of Art Forum, at this stage Art Forum is not oriented solely on festivals, though the company did organize a DJ Festival, sponsored by Magti.
According to Giorgadze, club projects are not profitable. Georgia is a small country and the development of club life is dependent on tourism.
“The countries which are rich in visitors have excellent club life. So the progress of club life is absolutely connected to and dependant on tourism development,” Giorgadze said.
“Eastern Promotion chooses stars according to their popularity, quality and rating. Eastern Promotion decided to suggest that Georgians listen to high quality music, for instance The Manhattan Transfer and James Brown. This was a period when the Georgian stage was overloaded with low professional Russian singers and Georgian variety actors did not exist. The company now works for more refined listeners.
Eastern Promotion is oriented on two cities: Tbilisi and Batumi. Tbilisi is not such a big city not to elucidate what is interesting for listeners, so the taste of these citizens is already foreseen,” Giorgadze added.
According to Kakha Tsiskaridze, Art Forum is a company which cooperates with corporative customers, makes strategies, imaging promotions and advertisements. Art Forum has already made promotions for Magti and Bali, and IC Group the insurance company.
“The Kaladze and Magti alliance was Art forum’s idea. The company has a claim on event management. Art Forum is mostly occupied with cooperation with businessmen and the company fulfils their special orders. We are less oriented on concert arrangement. Art Forum’s strategy is very different from Eastern Promotion, however no doubt the company is very serious and experienced in this field,” Tsiskaridze declared.
“Art Forum can attract any stars, can get the consent of any singer, but the problem is budget. If the company had a strong financer we could even bring stars like Jennifer Lopez and Madonna to Tbilisi. It is not important that the concert should be a commercial one, the company can do it as a private order (for instance as a birthday present) for someone who is willing to pay enough money,” Tsiskaridze added.
According to Misha Giorgadze, Eastern Promotion can not bring in stars like Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce, as the Georgian market is not yet ready.
“These stars cost about USD 3 million. To clarify, the situation with these stars is like the situation with the car Ferrari. Everyone knows that Ferrari is an excellent car but to open an auto shop with this brand would not be profitable for any company in Georgia at this time.
Eastern Promotion has already brought stars like Jamiroquai, Joe Cocker, and George Benson to Tbilisi, but it is still too early for the likes of Jennifer Lopez, as such projects need extremely large funds. Old stars are no less popular among listeners though. For example, 70 000 people attended the Ricchi E Pover concert on October 21, 2007,” Giorgadze said.
“Eastern Promotion decided to bring the old blues singer John Lee Hooker, but in this case the principle that older stars cost less was ruined. This old but popular singer cost USD 250 000. Eastern Promotion intended to bring Sting to Georgia but the company did not manage to as the producers of Sting made a new project and according to this project Sting costs USD 1 400 000,” Giorgadze added.
“Art Forum was an organizer of the Ricchi E Pover concert on October 21, 2007. It was a governmental order and this concert was absolutely financed by the government. Supposedly it was a good decision as the rating of this group is very high in Tbilisi. The company guessed it when we organized Ricchi E Pover’s commercial concert at the club Night Office on February 14, 2007. Ticket prices were GEL 60-200,” Tsiskaridze said.
According to Giorgadze, Eastern Promotion also has governmental orders, for instance Toto Cutonio’s visit in Tbilisi as well as in Batumi was ordered by the government. Governmental as well as ordinary orders are very responsible for the company.
“To hold concerts without sponsorship is very difficult even today as our society is not ready to pay high prices in the entertainment sphere. Eastern Promotion is holding concerts mostly at the Philharmonic, the National State Concert Hall of Tbilisi. Holding a concert in for instance a stadium is not possible as ticket price decreases,” Giorgadze said.
“Large scope concerts require high expenses and the salary of the singer grows with Geometrical Progress. Singers are not interested in holding concerts in Georgia and in the Caucasus in general as there is not a great prospect of selling albums. Generally a concert is not perceived as the main way of profit for a singer,” Giorgadze added.
According to Giorgadze, Eastern Promotion’s oldest partners in sponsorship are Coca Cola Bottlers Georgia, and Nescafe. TBC Bank also deserves the name of devoted sponsor. Next in the list: the Sheraton Metekhi Palace, MS Lights, Sound City and M Group.
“Eastern Promotion managed to attract sponsors’ attention with interesting suggestions. Each famous company which has no problems in the market, needs Imaging Promotion to be well known among customers, so their sponsorship is some kind of promotion for them. Coca Cola is the first company in the world spending the largest amount of money in advertising and promotion. At the beginning of our partnership Coca Cola decided to sponsor Ray Charles’s visit to Tbilisi, as this singer is associated with America and Coca Cola itself is a symbol of the country, the company thought that it would be the best means of promotion. These companies try to get the favour of people through sponsoring,” Giorgadze declared.
According to Giorgadze, tickets prices at the concert organized by Eastern Promotion, range from GEL 40 to 500, it depends on the project. The GEL 500 tickets contained seven concerts and acted as a seasonal ticket.
“The most expensive tickets were at the Jamiroquai and Joe Cocker concerts, prices were GEL 300. The concerts with the highest budgets were Joe Cocker and Jamiroquai and the concert with the smallest budget was Sisi Rogers in 2004,” Giorgadze added.
According to Kakha Tsiskaridze, Art Forum is an organization which is absolutely interested in customers’ desires. If a customer wants Russian singers the company will bring them. A year ago Art Forum invited the Russian pop-star Leonid Agutin to Georgia for the opening of the Ian Homer Tennis Courts. The company also arranged a corporative evening with Goran Bregovich for Magti in Tbilisi.
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