| According to DJ Cary Chang, there's the before and then there’s the after: "Five years ago when I played a club like Rebar we'd get over 600 people through the door just to see me on a Friday night – now if I do 60, I'm doing really quite well."
Calgary 's nightclubbing scene was quite different before the onset of the large clubbing party phenomenon that has swept its way into our town. Companies like Smirnoff, Du Maurier and Benson and Hedges are regularly bringing big-name international DJs like Carl Cox and Dmitri from Paris into local clubs like The Whiskey and Skybar. With its Gold Club Series, cigarette manufacturer Benson and Hedges is the biggest player in the game right now.
Chang believes that the drawing power of these shows has diminished the crowds he gets on regular club nights, but don’t feel too sorry for him – he’s reaping the benefits as a local DJ who gets included on the bill for many sponsored parties.
"I definitely do most of the Benson and Hedges shows," Chang says. "It seems a lot of their opening slots have fallen into my lap."
Chang is grateful that performing at these events has allowed him to work with some of the globe's top DJ talents – his personal favourite was Boy George – but he regrets that the touring shows have more or less put local promoters out of the loop. Even though Benson and Hedges subsidizes the ticket price, the costs of bringing a high-profile DJ or band to town are huge. Add flights and hotel rooms to the artist’s fee and costs can really add up.
"(Most local promoters) can't throw shows and make them profitable for nearly the kind of prices you're seeing these big sponsor shows happen," says Chang.
But Chang doesn’t oppose the events – and not only because he profits from them. Without them, he argues, artists like George Clinton’s Parliament/Funkadelic would never come to town.
He also says that the rise of sponsored parties was inevitable.
"I think it's been a relatively natural progression for the industry to move into an area where big players are finding a way to facilitate and finance these shows."
From the nightclub perspective, there are big benefits if you can land one of these spectacles. Skybar hosted Dmitri from Paris’s Gold Club event last October, and the club’s resident DJ and promotions co-ordinator, Mikey Da Roza, says it was a big hit.
"Not only did it pack the club on an off night, it also delivered a clientele that we wouldn’t see there throughout the week."
Da Roza doesn’t see big clubbing parties as a significant threat to Calgary DJs.
"If you are a local DJ and you have great talent, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to get work in the city. With Benson and Hedges, I think they are bringing a lot of people into the clubs and the house scene that normally wouldn’t be interested in it."
With tobacco companies governed by highly restrictive advertising laws, it's not surprising that they take advantage of the few promotional opportunities still open to them. If more mainstream advertising venues were available, one can't help thinking these companies would pull up stakes on their sponsored shows. Representatives for Benson and Hedges were contacted for this story, but they declined to comment.
More than willing to go on the record is DJ Jon Delerious, who has a cynical view of the sponsored events. Already well-known on both the local and national nightclub landscapes, Delerious just returned from an extensive European club tour and has a new album coming out in June.
"When you go to a Benson and Hedges show as a just person who is out for a good time, you don't fully realize that it is being put on by a tobacco company and they are just writing everything off. It sucks because I'm sure they don't really care about the music – they’re just in it to get people to buy their cigarettes. People don't realize that."
It’s hard to believe anyone wouldn’t realize that, considering that the cigarette-sponsored events include in-your-face branding. With all the prominently placed logos – and numerous cigarette sellers scantily clad in tight gold lamé outfits – you’d have to be mighty desensitized to marketing to not understand what’s at stake.
Aware that he could be labeled a hypocrite, Delerious admits that he has played a few of these Benson and Hedges events as an opening act.
"They always need a local DJ to tie the night together," he says. "So yeah, I've played them in the past and I have cashed the cheques and it has always been good."
But he dislikes how Benson and Hedges and other shows have put the squeeze on local promoters, who often can’t compete financially when it comes to booking top international acts. He suggests that music fans are getting too accustomed to ticket prices that are subsidized by corporate sponsors.
"I think people are getting spoiled. They are not paying to see talent anymore. They're just getting hand-fed superstars."
Don’t expect the hand-feeding to stop anytime soon. As long as tobacco corporations have promotional dollars to spend and are limited as to where they can spend them, the events will continue – as will the challenge for small clubs and promoters to find innovative ways to offer a night out that can compete with such formidable competition. |
