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| Running a show can be hard, but it's not that hard to keep most consumers happy Photo Credit: Zia Hiltey |
I have never been on the promotional end of a wrestling company. I possess no desire to run one either. I don't know, I don't mind seeing how the sausage gets made, but I fear that if I ever was involved in producing it, I would be sick of one of the non-familial things I love in this world with passion and vigor. Some might take that as admittance that I should not speak on what what wrestling companies should do to promote themselves. Contrarily, I tend to think that no one knows what the consumer wants more than the consumer.
Obviously, that statement is broad and in no way shape or form endemic of how a wrestling promotion should run. The width and breadth of opinions of fans who buy into even the smallest independent company can be so volatile that trying to listen to all of them would spell disaster. However, from years of both following wrestling and working on the supply side of retail, I think I might have a grasp, tenuous as it might be, on what any independent company should do as a generality to make its reach as far and wide as possible.
1. Are you primarily dependent on live gates? YouTube is your friend.
Some promotions, mostly local ones, have no intentions of filming their product for DVD release, which is fine. One can say a thing or two about community-driven pro wrestling with no ear towards expansion. However, staying local doesn't mean they should keep the footage to themselves. I don't think a reason exists that any company running a pro wrestling show in America shouldn't film their cards at least in part for distribution. For promotions that can't or don't want to put out the money to do DVD right, they can always go to YouTube. Standards for uploading on a free service are definitely lower, which can work to the advantage of a company looking to protect its live draw.
You throw up shitty handheld "fan cam" footage to entice locals to come out for the better live show, and for those who are not in the area, bam, you start exposing your talent to other promoters through fan buzz. If a local guy from, say, Pro Wrestling Freedom in Kentucky or IWA Deep South on Alabama's Gulf Coast, blows up and works in other promotions, they get better and bring back different flavors into the home company. Maybe someone blows up enough to go to Ring of Honor, and then boom, the home company has a reputation.
Examples are out there of companies who proactively put their stuff up for free, like CWF Mid-Atlantic, Elite Canadian Championship Wrestling, Metro Pro Wrestling, and of course, the mack daddies of free content, Beyond Wrestling. All of them, Metro Pro excepting, are doing pretty well for themselves right now, relatively speaking. Metro Pro may be on hiatus right now, but the reason certainly isn't because their tapings at Turner Rec Center in Kansas City, KS were poorly attended.
2. Does DVD drive your business? Timeliness is next to godliness (and so are production values).
Of course, promotions who do rely on DVD sales most of the time think locally but advertise globally (or at least nationwide). Some companies - like Ring of Honor, Dragon Gabe USA, and formerly Chikara - have been able to tour around areas larger than what could be described as "tri-state," but the facts remain that many companies on Smart Mark's roster are confined to one area. Local promotions are behind the eight ball already because they can't rely on people road-tripping in to supplement the crowd native to their immediate driving area. If a company is looking for revenue off DVDs, even if they are a touring outfit, they need to be able to replicate the experience of watching a show as close to the taping date of the show as possible. Buzz can only be sustained for a limited amount of time around a match or a card that deserves it.
The best route to take is to let the pros at Smart Mark or Highspots take care of editing and distribution, or at least have someone within the company know how to do rudimentary editing and be motivated to do it quickly. However, quality shouldn't be wholly sacrificed for expediency. If the choice was getting a DVD shipped next day with YouTube-fan cam quality coverage vs. waiting a week for something that looks fit for TV at least, go with the latter.
3. Keep a strong web presence.
Nothing irritates me more than trying to compile data for the "Any Shows This Weekend?" post and having to go dumpster diving for information about the show, and I'm only trying to get the word out. Imagine how frustrating it can be not to have all the information about door open time, venue, card, or language/photography policies if you're actually going to the thing? Promotion in the 21st Century means more than papering cars and hanging flyers. Do you have a website? Get a college student to do it for experience at least. Keep all the information current. Do you have a Facebook page? Make great use of the Events feature. Interact with your fans on social media. Draw them in. Don't make it so that you're relying only on word of mouth or a piece of paper placed irritatingly on the windshield held only by the wiper.
4. Make your wrestlers available before and after the show and during intermission (if you have an intermission).
Accessibility is an advantage indie companies have over WWE and TNA because of how intimate the settings usually are. The closeness of atmosphere is doubly important because most of the people on any given card may not be as well-known to all the crowd as the Kevin Steens or even Honky Tonk Men of the world who populate these shows. The best way to help crowd reactions for everyone is to have everyone out in the general area during shows. Watching some random dude in the ring can be cool, and he can get over if he's a good wrestler, charismatic, or has some other kind of performance quirk that he does exceedingly well. However, if I talk to a wrestler before the match, he's more likely to win me over during it. Human biases can be easily manipulated into your favor. Doubly nice is that accessibility urges wrestlers to sell merch, make more money for themselves, and thus make it so that coming out to your show is a win for them.
5. Be welcoming of everyone (and being family friendly is preferable).
Wrestling is no longer the domain of white dudes. I'm not sure it ever should have been or if it truly was, but the way promoters have historically carried on, if you're not a white male, well, you're not going to get fair representation of dudes worthy of rooting for in the crowd. America's still a melting pot, so maybe promotions shouldn't be set on running characters who make you want to hate them for who they are, whether on the basis of their gender, race, ethnicity, or religion. WWE still does it, but remember, progress trickles up in wrestling, not the other way down.
Furthermore, I tend to prefer that unless the conditions are just right, any given promotion should probably run family friendly shows. I know the harder edged PG-13 stuff plays in some areas. Lord knows Pro Wrestling Guerrilla makes a killing providing adult content, but odds are, your company is as far away from attaining the magic formula PWG has as I am from landing a role as a trainer on The Biggest Loser. Keeping the atmosphere kid-friendly isn't a handcuff; instead, the opportunity then arises to make youngsters fans for life and to lure mommy out to the shows too for a second paying adult ticket (assuming you don't charge for kids, which really, why would or should anyone do that?)
6. Don't lash out at commentators, fans, or journalists who have an unfavorable opinion.
If someone, anyone, has a problem with what you're doing as a promotion, the last thing you want to do is attack them and treat them like the enemy. Look, I know the customer isn't always right. I've been on both sides of the issue. I've seen awful customers, and regrettably, I've probably been an awful customer at times. But not everyone who has a complaint is automatically wrong. Your vision isn't infallible. IF someone has a complaint, you either address it civilly, or you ignore it if you feel it's not worth your time. But going to war with people on Twitter? Using blogs to call other fans/writers out? Putting people on blast at shows? None of that shit should fly. You're a professional, act like it.
Obviously, that statement is broad and in no way shape or form endemic of how a wrestling promotion should run. The width and breadth of opinions of fans who buy into even the smallest independent company can be so volatile that trying to listen to all of them would spell disaster. However, from years of both following wrestling and working on the supply side of retail, I think I might have a grasp, tenuous as it might be, on what any independent company should do as a generality to make its reach as far and wide as possible.
1. Are you primarily dependent on live gates? YouTube is your friend.
Some promotions, mostly local ones, have no intentions of filming their product for DVD release, which is fine. One can say a thing or two about community-driven pro wrestling with no ear towards expansion. However, staying local doesn't mean they should keep the footage to themselves. I don't think a reason exists that any company running a pro wrestling show in America shouldn't film their cards at least in part for distribution. For promotions that can't or don't want to put out the money to do DVD right, they can always go to YouTube. Standards for uploading on a free service are definitely lower, which can work to the advantage of a company looking to protect its live draw.
You throw up shitty handheld "fan cam" footage to entice locals to come out for the better live show, and for those who are not in the area, bam, you start exposing your talent to other promoters through fan buzz. If a local guy from, say, Pro Wrestling Freedom in Kentucky or IWA Deep South on Alabama's Gulf Coast, blows up and works in other promotions, they get better and bring back different flavors into the home company. Maybe someone blows up enough to go to Ring of Honor, and then boom, the home company has a reputation.
Examples are out there of companies who proactively put their stuff up for free, like CWF Mid-Atlantic, Elite Canadian Championship Wrestling, Metro Pro Wrestling, and of course, the mack daddies of free content, Beyond Wrestling. All of them, Metro Pro excepting, are doing pretty well for themselves right now, relatively speaking. Metro Pro may be on hiatus right now, but the reason certainly isn't because their tapings at Turner Rec Center in Kansas City, KS were poorly attended.
2. Does DVD drive your business? Timeliness is next to godliness (and so are production values).
Of course, promotions who do rely on DVD sales most of the time think locally but advertise globally (or at least nationwide). Some companies - like Ring of Honor, Dragon Gabe USA, and formerly Chikara - have been able to tour around areas larger than what could be described as "tri-state," but the facts remain that many companies on Smart Mark's roster are confined to one area. Local promotions are behind the eight ball already because they can't rely on people road-tripping in to supplement the crowd native to their immediate driving area. If a company is looking for revenue off DVDs, even if they are a touring outfit, they need to be able to replicate the experience of watching a show as close to the taping date of the show as possible. Buzz can only be sustained for a limited amount of time around a match or a card that deserves it.
The best route to take is to let the pros at Smart Mark or Highspots take care of editing and distribution, or at least have someone within the company know how to do rudimentary editing and be motivated to do it quickly. However, quality shouldn't be wholly sacrificed for expediency. If the choice was getting a DVD shipped next day with YouTube-fan cam quality coverage vs. waiting a week for something that looks fit for TV at least, go with the latter.
3. Keep a strong web presence.
Nothing irritates me more than trying to compile data for the "Any Shows This Weekend?" post and having to go dumpster diving for information about the show, and I'm only trying to get the word out. Imagine how frustrating it can be not to have all the information about door open time, venue, card, or language/photography policies if you're actually going to the thing? Promotion in the 21st Century means more than papering cars and hanging flyers. Do you have a website? Get a college student to do it for experience at least. Keep all the information current. Do you have a Facebook page? Make great use of the Events feature. Interact with your fans on social media. Draw them in. Don't make it so that you're relying only on word of mouth or a piece of paper placed irritatingly on the windshield held only by the wiper.
4. Make your wrestlers available before and after the show and during intermission (if you have an intermission).
Accessibility is an advantage indie companies have over WWE and TNA because of how intimate the settings usually are. The closeness of atmosphere is doubly important because most of the people on any given card may not be as well-known to all the crowd as the Kevin Steens or even Honky Tonk Men of the world who populate these shows. The best way to help crowd reactions for everyone is to have everyone out in the general area during shows. Watching some random dude in the ring can be cool, and he can get over if he's a good wrestler, charismatic, or has some other kind of performance quirk that he does exceedingly well. However, if I talk to a wrestler before the match, he's more likely to win me over during it. Human biases can be easily manipulated into your favor. Doubly nice is that accessibility urges wrestlers to sell merch, make more money for themselves, and thus make it so that coming out to your show is a win for them.
5. Be welcoming of everyone (and being family friendly is preferable).
Wrestling is no longer the domain of white dudes. I'm not sure it ever should have been or if it truly was, but the way promoters have historically carried on, if you're not a white male, well, you're not going to get fair representation of dudes worthy of rooting for in the crowd. America's still a melting pot, so maybe promotions shouldn't be set on running characters who make you want to hate them for who they are, whether on the basis of their gender, race, ethnicity, or religion. WWE still does it, but remember, progress trickles up in wrestling, not the other way down.
Furthermore, I tend to prefer that unless the conditions are just right, any given promotion should probably run family friendly shows. I know the harder edged PG-13 stuff plays in some areas. Lord knows Pro Wrestling Guerrilla makes a killing providing adult content, but odds are, your company is as far away from attaining the magic formula PWG has as I am from landing a role as a trainer on The Biggest Loser. Keeping the atmosphere kid-friendly isn't a handcuff; instead, the opportunity then arises to make youngsters fans for life and to lure mommy out to the shows too for a second paying adult ticket (assuming you don't charge for kids, which really, why would or should anyone do that?)
6. Don't lash out at commentators, fans, or journalists who have an unfavorable opinion.
If someone, anyone, has a problem with what you're doing as a promotion, the last thing you want to do is attack them and treat them like the enemy. Look, I know the customer isn't always right. I've been on both sides of the issue. I've seen awful customers, and regrettably, I've probably been an awful customer at times. But not everyone who has a complaint is automatically wrong. Your vision isn't infallible. IF someone has a complaint, you either address it civilly, or you ignore it if you feel it's not worth your time. But going to war with people on Twitter? Using blogs to call other fans/writers out? Putting people on blast at shows? None of that shit should fly. You're a professional, act like it.
