Although I had presented many major popular stars (and many Jazz artists) on stage between 1973 and 1982 including Michael Jackson & the Jackson Five, Diana Ross, Tom Waits, Willie Nelson, The Temptations, Four Tops, Three Degrees, Iggy Pop, Tony Bennett, Beach Boys, Dionne Warwick, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass, Buddy Rich, George Duke, Stanley Clarke, Earl Klugh, Dizzy Gillespie and a stack of others - I had been working in the performing arts almost exclusively from 1981 to 1994 with the great ballet and opera companies (The Bolshoi Ballet & Opera, Mariinsky Ballet & Opera, Royal Ballet etc) and in television/broadcast from 1995 to 1999 so it was quite a surprise to be back presenting a major rock star ELTON JOHN in Ephesus, Turkey!
Why Ephesus and why Elton John? And why the first serious Pay-Per-View Internet Broadcast?
I had been working for some years to put together a satellite television network called "The Classic Music Channel" - this was intended as an MTV for the rest of us. All video clips were of a maximum five minutes in length and it was to feature virtually all types of music and the arts you couldn't then see on MTV - classic rock, dance, ballet, opera, classical music, jazz, blues, world music, musicals - you name it!
It was a great concept and the demo/trial videos we produced were truly fantastic - I got so much encouragement and support from the record, phone, satellite and cable companies at that time - raised significant investment in the US and London - BUT the times were changing quickly with the internet becoming increasingly important. Instead of paying millions to get a slot on a satellite to get the channel broadcasting, the internet was reaching the public for a fraction of the cost. Sadly the channel never truly got off the ground - although I truly believe it would have been a great hit especially at that time - in many ways we were ahead of our time - anyhow that is history - but how did this lead to presenting Elton John and for the first serious global pay-per-view internet broadcast?
I was trying to work out what to do when I was invited by the George Soros Cultural Foundation to visit Almaty the former capital city of Kazakhstan to lecture to the arts institutions on how to survive in the 21st Century! Well, I hadn't figured that out for myself let alone the arts companies in Kazakhstan :) Anyhow Katya my wife at that time (her father had been a famous actor in the Soviet Union Idris Nogaibayev was a Kazakh - her mother was also a wonderful actress) boarded the plane at London's Heathrow Airport and a few hours later we landed in Almaty. The trip was an extraordinary experience - we were welcomed and looked after fabulously - the lectures went well - once I had overcome my nervousness, we formed a great group of creative people examining everything from international negotiations, contracting, publicity, marketing and so forth. I remember asking the opera house and some of the companies to show me their publicity and they would deliver a poor black and white photo taken decades ago - which would be enough to keep them out of work for life!
It was a wonderful experience and we all learned a lot a lot about one another - and then within weeks I was contacted to provide artists for the Forbidden City Festival of the August Moon in Beijing - I was back in the impresario business full time again.
My accountant and old friend Philip Austin contacted me and told me that two of his clients had made significant funds in the internet business and wanted to develop on-line concerts - could I secure a contract with Elton John for a pay-per-view concert - the first big pay-per-view concert ever? Although I had worked with many leading pop/rock artists before 1981 when we started our Soviet decade, I had never worked with Elton.
It didn't take long to research Elton's management team and off I went to meet Frank Presland and Keith Bradley. Both Keith and Frank were enormously helpful and friendly and we quickly agreed a contract. Frankly speaking (no pun intended) it was hard to quantify levels of fees because no-one had done this before. Yes, there had been a few internet broadcasts of shows and indeed Madonna was at that time planning a free on-line broadcast. However, we were going one important step further - would the global public pay to listen and watch a concert on their computer screens?
I had been in touch with a number of festivals throughout the Middle East and many were keen to have an artist of the stature of Elton John perform - I had been working previously with the fabulous Beiteddine Festival in the glorious Chouf Hills of Lebanon and also with the Izmir Arts Festival in Izmir, Turkey. This is a wonderful festival run by Filiz Sarper and her great team - they present this festival every summer and feature a great range of leading artists. After much debate we decided to present Elton as part of the Izmir Festival at the historic and incredibly beautiful Roman amphitheatre at Ephesus. This amphitheatre had originally been built in the Hellenistic Period in the 3rd century BC and expanded in the Roman period to 25,000 seats - made up of 66 rows of seats in 3 horizontal sections.
Elton's management agreed terms and contracts were signed and furthermore we reached agreement to also film after the Ephesus show Elton at the Palace of Catherine the Great, situated in the village of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoye Selo) outside St Petersburg in Russia. This magnificent palace was the summer palace of the Tsars and was intended to be the site of the second broadcast filmed a couple of days later (for future transmission)
You can imagine the organisation that went into this - getting the film company Done and Dusted (Simon Pizzey) with Director (Dick Carruthers) contracted - flying the film equipment and the team to Izmir - on top of that Keith Bradley and his team had to fly Elton's special piano to Turkey and we all had to get this large grand piano carried across the Roman ruins to reach the stage plus the sound & lighting equipment, microphones, sound and lighting desks! Not the easiest place to film and perform a concert...and then after the show unpack everything and fly to Russia - I must have been mad arranging all of this - CRAZY!
I now had to negotiate and agree the internet broadcast deal - after lengthy discussions with Microsoft in London and California we agreed a deal and contracts were signed - I had managed to get Microsoft to agree millions of Dollars worth of promo online, which was exciting.
I put together a great team Anthony Phillips (former Director the Royal Festival Hall and the South Bank Complex), Brian Theobald (Managing Director of BPR Productions - who booked Ronnie Scott's Club and promoted a host of the great Jazz concerts to take place in the UK and Europe - Brian became my partner for a number of years when we promoted Buddy Rich, Miles Davis and many others), Chris Gelardi and with our production team we all flew to Izmir.
I had gone ahead to handle the press and press conference together with Filiz Sarper the President of the Izmir Festival and we got some great press and TV coverage - very amusingly one national Turkish newspaper had a large picture of me next to a photo of Elton saying I was Elton's brother!! Very funny - I wonder if Elton knew he had a brother he'd never met before? I have no idea where they figured that from.
It was a thrill to be presenting this concert and knowing that hopefully millions of people around the world would also be watching on their computer screens. The ancient amphitheatre began filling up with people (approximately 18,000 tickets were sold) - I watched increasingly worried because this marvellous old amphitheatre was nearly 2,500 years old and hardly in the best of condition - would it cope with these thousands of people?
Also we had to create dressing rooms in the old ruins behind the stage - there were many rooms but of course having been built two thousand years ago or more they weren't exactly in pristine condition to say the least. With beautiful rugs and drapes we did our best to create an exotic Aladdin's cave for Elton and his team.
You can see for yourselves the concert online on YouTube - Elton's solo show was brilliant and the film captures the atmosphere wonderfully. How many people viewed it online?
1.2 million tried to log on - 541 actually managed it !
The system online collapsed and simply could not cope with the volume of traffic. I will always remember being told these numbers and feeling devastated that all the effort, energy and passion that went into the project had been a waste - although we did have a superb film of the concert and the 18,000 audience at Ephesus loved the show.
We packed everything up and moved onto St.Petersburg and into the Palace of Catherine the Great - another concert, anther film - another land - so different from the land of the Greeks, Romans, Ottoman's, Attaturk to modern Turkey to the land of the Tsars and Commisars - a wonderful cultural leap - as I watched the fireworks leaping into the sky and blossoming out into a mirage of flame, colour and exciting imagery I couldn't help reflecting on how we were ahead of our time (again) - in the years to come internet concerts and online music would become an everyday experience - but in July 2001 it was new and we did it.
A final epitaph - a few weeks after the concerts I was sitting in my home and the phone rang and a senior manager at AOL called to congratulate me on the Ephesus show - I don't remember his name but he said "you must have had a very large team to put that together" - I laughingly said "no it was only me and my dog" - I looked at Misha our beautiful Tibetan Terrier and thought - don't you dare bark now!
Parthenon when we took Elton to Greece as part of the Athens Festival)
A few weeks later I took Elton John to the amazing Beiteddine Festival in Lebanon - it was another first - a major star performing in Lebanon was another coup and one I am enormously proud of - more about that later - another blog on the concerts and shows in that amazing land. Working with Elton in many countries has been a privilege and an honour - a great singer songwriter - a true Troubadour for the 21st Century -
Thanks for reading
Peter
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