THE MAN BEHIND THE SCENES
As the guy who runs the Waikiki Shell and Blaisdell Center, John Fuhrmann has seen more concerts and shows than anybody.
By Chad Pata
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Not only did The Lion King entertain 180,000 people and gross close to $15 million, but according to John Fuhrmann, events and services manager for the Blaisdell Center Concert Hall, it may have changed the way we are entertained in Hawaii forever.
“We learned how to be successful,” says Fuhrmann, who has spent the last quarter century at the city’s Blaisdell Center and Waikiki Shell. “The Lion King was 93 percent capacity - we have never done a show at Blaisdell for that long a run at that capacity.”
Their secret came not just from the barrage of ads we witnessed throughout all of last year, but in advance and group sales. By selling out months in advance, the proper planning could be put in place to accommodate the public’s desire.
This principle may soon be put in effect for all shows as Fuhrmann and Mayor Mufi Hannemann plan to unveil their new subscription plan for the Blaisdell. No longer will camping out for the seats you want be necessary, as those who purchase a subscription will get first option on the seats and dates they want.
The subscription system has been gaining popularity in a lot of midsize cities across the country - including Denver, Seattle and Portland. Not only does it help out the subscribers to get the kind of seat they want, but also increases the draw to bring larger acts to the Islands.
“This develops a mail order base; this allows us to go to acts from the Mainland and say we already have this base of people that want to buy,” says Fuhrmann. “It strengthens the draw for the acts. The show is already sold for them; all they have to do is come.”
In addition to the subscription plan, Fuhrmann has become much more proactive recently in his pursuit of big-time entertainers for the Islands.
“It’s changed a lot in the last few years since Hannemann came into office,” says Fuhrmann, who joined the Blaisdell in 1980. “It used to be a passive place where you let business come to you. We worked hard, don’t get me wrong, but we weren’t really soliciting business.
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“Mufi wanted enterprise services to be ‘enterprise’services and be self-sufficient. Not only that, but he put us in a budget so that we can buy new equipment to redo the arena. They are the first new chairs we have had in there since Elvis.”
The new attitude toward entertainment netted us the likes of The Police, Billy Joel and, after three years of work, The Lion King. In the next couple years, Fuhrmann believes there will be three more Broadway shows coming our way thanks to the new active attitude.
“I travel a lot - not on the city’s dollar,” adds Fuhrmann quickly with a smile. “The budget does allow us to go get more shows. It’s very difficult to make a phone call and get someone to trust you to bring something 3,000 miles.
“This business, as with most, works off people who know people, meeting you and getting them to trust you and knowing you can work. Make a deal that works together for us, it’s a business - they need to have a chance of making a profit and bringing it in successfully.”
The biggest hurdle to a show’s profitability here is the transportation cost. On the Mainland, tours have all their equipment loaded in semis and travel 100 miles up the road to the next gig. Here, all the equipment must be rented at a much higher cost, not to mention the dozens of airline tickets to get the entire crew here.
This is where Fuhrmann’s face-to-face meetings help as he can make assurances, arrange transportation and discuss decades of pulling off successful shows in the Islands.
One of the newest assurances he can provide is that the bands will have the tools they need to sound their best. As part of the new budget, they are replacing the 20-plus-year-old sound system with a top-end Line Array setup.
“We are putting equipment in there that these people are used to having elsewhere in the world,” says Fuhrmann, who has also added new follow spots to boost the lighting. “We have become a lot more competitive world because there are a lot more arenas and theaters than there are shows touring. In a sense, even though the Blaisdell is the only facility of its type in Honolulu, we are competing against arenas on the Mainland.”
It is not just the arenas on the Mainland we are fighting out here, but also a law from 1920 known as the Jones Act. Originally written to help injured seaman, it now is used to keep American jobs for Americans, but sometimes in ridiculous ways.
“They may take their tour to Japan and then fly in here from Japan,” says Fuhrmann. “But if they are on a Japanese airline, they can’t get off and play in Honolulu because they flew in on a Japanese airline.”
In other words, we sometimes have the talent here, thus eliminating the prohibitive transportation cost, but they cannot play thanks to a post-World War I economic policy.
But all of this is in a day’s work for Fuhrmann, who also has had to answer those who criticize his largest success to date: The Lion King. While most locals had welcomed the show and eagerly bought up tickets, some have questioned the tying up of the Concert Hall for a three-month stint.
“Lion King was in, and some of the symphony dates got moved around, but you saw more people use that concert hall than for any other event,” says Fuhrmann, who has accommodated the symphony by giving them whatever dates they needed this spring.
“The Concert Hall was built by the city for the community, and we try to honor that commitment. With The Lion King, the hall was being used more by the community than ever.
“It generated the revenues to pay for the hall, which benefit-
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