ongoing

We ran into Scullers Jazz Club Entertainment Director Fred Taylor at the recent Keith Jarrett trio concert at Symphony Hall. We talked of his old clubs, Paul's Mall and the Jazz Workshop, and the realization that his Scullers Jazz Club was approaching two decades in business. Seemed less than half of that, we both agreed. Time sure passes fast. We didn't have time to talk about the recession or the toll it was taking in the arts world, but then we just got this from Scullers General Manaager Dayla Arabella Santurri. There's some discouraging news up front, but stay with it, there's some good news for you in there, too. Do the words "free tickets" mean anything to you? Read on ... 

Empty seats. That is what Scullers Jazz Club’s General Manager, Dayla Arabella Santurri had in mind while watching a recent CNN story on the current economic crisis. 2008 was well on its way to being the most successful year in Scullers 19 year history when August came around, and then September. “It seemed like in the blink of the eye, people just disappeared.” Santurri continues, “our members, our regulars…it was eerie, we were presenting national artists and running at less than 50% capacity. This had never happened over an extended period in the nine years I’ve been here.”

September was well on its way to finishing out as the worst month in Scullers history, presenting a challenge for Santurri and Scullers Entertainment Director Fred Taylor. “We were in the process of finalizing our November 2008 through February 2009 show schedule as September was turning into a real disaster. We were starting to second guess our approach to the next four months. We came to the conclusion that Scullers success has come from a tried and true booking theory of canvassing a wide musical landscape encompassing both, new and old as well as local, national and international artists from various corners of the genre, and we weren’t going to shake things up too much.”

While September was hemorrhaging, the advance for October and November was starting to improve and as September turned into October, Scullers was posting sell outs for artists like Roy Hargrove and Chuck Mangione and were already near capacity for three of four weekends in November. If anything positive came out of the September slide, it was an idea that would come to fruition in October.

In October, Scullers utilized their e-newsletter to offer complimentary tickets to select shows throughout the month, exclusively to their email subscribers. According to their 10/24/08 e-newsletter, subscribers could request up to 4 tickets per person and Scullers asked they used the tickets to invite people who have “… never been to Scullers,  or to any live music performance, or are just really struggling and could use a night out right now.”

“The idea was simple, we’d use the complimentary ticket offer to introduce people to the newest artists on our roster and in return, we asked they introduce us to some of their friends.” Santurri continues “…we had no idea the response would be so incredible. Not only were people responding to the newsletter that they would like the tickets, they were telling us about the people they would bring. They also told us about their own stories of late and how their wife had recently lost her job or that the current economic situation required they cut any entertainment dollars out of their budget completely and appreciated the opportunity for a night out. There was just one incredible story after another.” In the four days after the newsletter was sent, Scullers gave out over 90 pairsof complimentary tickets. In those four days the staff at Scullers realized they were on to something and that this wouldn’t be a one shot promotion.

On the homepage of Scullers website, http://www.scullersjazz.com, there is an ad that reads simply “Complimentary Tickets,” by clicking the ad, you are instructed to click to join their e-newsletter to receive the December 1st edition that will contain a link for complimentary tickets to select December shows (that is the only way to request the complimentary tickets, through the link sent in the newsletter.)

400 Soldiers Field Road, at the corner of the Mass Pike and Storrow Drive. 617-562-4111  www.scullersjazz.com