Stars in their eyes
The court entertainer, royally commissioned to riddle at feasts and provide the monarch with much-needed distraction, was a dying breed as far back as the 17th century.
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But in recent years there’s been a renaissance in court performances. The Queen’s 2002 Golden Jubilee saw stars including Sir Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox and Brian May grace the Party at the Palace stage for a three-and-a-half hour spectacle.
These entertainers performed free for the Queen, with profits from album sales going to charity. Everyone else has to pay - and although these stars don’t come cheap, the rise of the global billionaire class has created a booming business in the world’s finest private shows.
Christina Aguilera, for example, earned ?580,000 for a 30-minute performance at Suleiman Kerimov’s 40th birthday party, and a reported $2m for three songs at the wedding of another Russian billionaire, Andrei Melnichenko, last year.
And publicly reported sums generally don’t include additional fees for luxury accommodation, meals, production costs, transport and insurance.
For artists there are many other perks to these billionaire-funded soirees. There are several incentives for an artist to do private engagements, says Ben Bernstein, an agent at the William Morris Agency, which represents entertainers ranging from Dolly Parton to Eminem. First of all, private gigs are felt to be a safe engagement. “For a newer artist who may not as yet have commercial drawing power, the ability to make money and not have to be concerned about their [audience] is the incentive,” says Bernstein.
Private showings also allow touring artists to play more than one show in the same city - for example, an office party one day and a large arena concert the next - without attracting undue attention. Artists and their managers tend to feel that they receive better treatment at private venues, with some preferring the usually more intimate setting of a home or office, or enjoying a welcome respite from the pressure of playing in front of reporters and critics.
Bernstein says another plus is that a private show takes less time. “The artist usually arrives the night before the engagement, plays the night of engagement, and leaves the following day. The show is basically the same that the artist does normally, although usually a private engagement only looks for an artist to perform around 60, maybe 75 minutes, so shows are much shorter than a normal concert.”
And then there’s the cash: “It’s kind of a no-brainer,” says Steve Einzig, founder of the New York-based online company BookingEntertainment.com. Though figures on private transactions are elusive, talent agents agree that professional artists are paid above market value for private shows. By way of an estimate, Einzig says a one-and-a-half time price increase on an artist’s normal fees is generally the rule. “If Artist A normally gets $200,000 for a public show, then they would probably charge $300,000 for a private event, although there is no set price.”
Barry Weisblatt, of the Whiteleaf Entertainment Group, says: “The one element I’ll stress is that most of the time my clients or other people interested in hiring entertainers for private events forget how expensive it is to produce them. It often comes as something of a shock to someone who doesn’t understand how our business works. Given a number of $150,000 - the artist’s fee - the client often thinks that’s all they are responsible for. The costs of production can be astronomical - by that I mean hiring someone like myself to procure and produce the entertainment, the staging, the sound system, lighting - even catering needs can become very elaborate.”
Whatever the reason for these star performances, the role of the entertainer is much the same today as it was in the days of the court entertainers: to make the host look grand.
Retail tycoon Philip Green, for example, threw a massive toga party for 250 guests to celebrate his 50th birthday in 2002 and, three years later, spent a reported ?4m on a bar mitzvah party for his son Brandon. The birthday bash was held in Cyprus, with Tom Jones and Rod Stewart providing the musical entertainment. For his son’s celebration, Green flew 300 guests to the French Riviera, held the religious services in a private synagogue erected in the 14-acre hotel gardens for the occasion, and hired superstars Destiny’s Child and tenor Andrea Bocelli to perform on consecutive nights. As a baseline figure, Beyonce will not be hired for less than $500,000 a time.
But how is a figure such as $500,000 worked out? WhiteLeaf Entertainment’s Barry Weisblatt confesses, “I think the numbers are very arbitrary.” An artist’s performance fees are set according to concert ticket sales, CD sales and possibly by advertising revenues, while for private showings, agents and managers can raise the sum by a factor of upwards of 50 per cent, apparently at their own discretion.
“I think that for a lot of these artists the numbers are based on what they were able to get from the last date they book. When they get $100,000 one week and the next week someone offers them $250,000 the artists and their agents honestly believe that their market value has increased,” says Weisblatt.
In some cases the fees are negotiable, but for many performance veterans, as Weisblatt puts it, there is no “wiggle room”.
Putting a price tag on a celebrity’s desirability is a complicated business, and an outside observer may not see justification for the steep fees. However, for a select group of extremely private and wealthy individuals the benefits of a private concert far outweigh the costs.
Even so, as celebrity worship starts to hover on the brink of ridiculousness, a little restraint might be a good thing.
私家演出 各取所需
宫
廷艺人早在17世纪就逐渐消亡，之前他们曾受命出现在各色宴会上，为君主提供所需的消遣娱乐表演。
但近年来，宫廷演出重新兴起。在2002年的英国女王登基50周年大庆(Golden Jubilee)上，汇集了保罗?麦卡特尼爵士(Sir Paul McCartney)、安妮?蓝妮克丝(Annie Lennox)和布赖恩?梅(Brian May)等多位明星，他们在宫廷舞台上进行了三个半小时的华美演出，为这次盛典增色不少。
这些艺人为女王表演时免费，并将演出专辑销售所得利润投入慈善事业，但别人请他们演出就得付钱了。尽管请到这些明星费用不菲，但随着全球亿万富豪阶层的兴起，全球最精湛私人演出的业务已经繁荣起来。
比如，克里斯蒂娜?阿奎莱拉(Christina Aguilera)在俄罗斯富豪苏莱曼?克里莫夫(Suleiman Kerimov)40岁生日会上30分钟的表演就赚了58万英镑；而去年她在另一位俄罗斯亿万富豪安德烈?梅尔尼琴科（Andrei Melnichenko）的婚礼上献唱了三首歌，据说将200万美元揽入囊中。
此外，被公开报道的金额通常不包括豪华住宿、餐饮、制作成本、交通和保险等额外费用。
对艺人而言，参加这些亿万富豪出资的社交晚会还有很多其它好处。威廉-莫里斯经纪公司(William Morris Agency)经纪人本?伯恩斯坦(Ben Bernstein)表示，艺人出席私人活动存在几个诱因。该公司旗下艺人包括多莉?帕顿(Dolly Parton)和埃米纳姆(Eminem)等。首先，私人活动给人的感觉是一种安全的演出。伯恩斯坦表示：“对新出道的艺人而言，他们可能尚未拥有足够的商业驱动力，因此赚钱能力和不必担心没有观众就成了动因所在。”
私人表演还使得巡回演出的艺人可以在同一个城市表演不止一场，比如今天在某公司聚会上演出，明天出席一场大型音乐会，而且不会吸引过度关注。艺人及其经纪人往往感到，他们参加私人活动时受到的礼遇更佳，有些艺人则喜欢通常比较隐密的家庭或办公室环境，或享受不用在记者和评论者面前表演的放松。
伯恩斯坦表示，另一个因素则是私人演出耗时更少。“艺人通常在活动前一晚抵达，活动当晚演出，次日离开。演出内容基本上和艺人平时的表演一样，不过一场私人活动通常只希望艺人表演60分钟左右，也可能是75分钟，因此这类演出要比正常的演唱会短暂得多。
再有一点便是酬劳了。纽约网络公司BookingEntertainment.com创始人史蒂夫?艾因齐格(Steve Einzig)表示：“这一点就不用说了。”尽管私人表演的价码并不确定，但艺人的经纪人都认同一点，即职业艺人参加私人演出的价码高于市价。艾因齐格表示，据估计，市场行情是艺人正常身价的1.5倍。“虽然没有确定的价码，但如果一名艺人公开演出的正常酬劳是20万美元，那么他们参加私人活动可能要价30万美元。”
Whiteleaf 娱乐集团(Whiteleaf Entertainment Group)的巴里?维斯伯拉特(Barry Weisblatt)表示：“我要强调的一点是，大部分时候，当我的客户或其他人愿意雇艺人进行私人演出时，都没考虑到演出制作是多么昂贵。不明白我们如何运作的人往往会有些吃惊。客户往往认为，给艺人付15万美元演出费就完事了。但演出成本可能是天文数字――我指的是雇个像我这样的人来制作，处理表演、舞台布景、音响系统、灯光等任务。有时甚至连用餐要求也可能非常精致。”
不论这些明星演出的原因是什么，艺人今天的角色与过去宫廷艺人仍大致相同：让主人的招待显得豪华、体面。
例如，2002年，零售大亨菲利普?格林(Philip Green)举行了一次有250位客人参加的大型长袍派对，庆祝自己的50岁生日。3年后，他为儿子布兰登(Brandon)举行了成人礼派对，据报道费用为400万英镑。这次生日盛会在塞浦路斯举行，汤姆?琼斯(Tom Jones)和罗德?斯图尔特(Rod Stewart)到场献曲。为了儿子的庆典，格林用飞机将300位客人送到蔚蓝海岸(French Riviera)，在一座私人犹太教堂里举行了宗教仪式（该教堂是为此次仪式，在14英亩的酒店花园里建造的），而且请了超级巨星天命真女(Destiny’s Child)和男高音安德烈亚?博切利(Andrea Bocelli)连续演出了几个晚上。作为标志性人物，碧昂丝(Beyonce)每次出场费不会低于50万美元。
但50万美元这样的数字是怎么算出来的呢？WhiteLeaf娱乐集团的巴里?维斯伯拉特承认：“我认为，确定这些数字是非常专断的。”艺人表演费是根据音乐会门票售价、唱片销量、可能还有广告收入来确定的，而就私人演出而言，经纪人和经理人可以将金额抬高50%，这显然由他们自由决定。
维斯伯拉特表示：“我认为，对许多这些艺人而言，演出费用取决于他们能从最近一次预约演出中得到的数字。如果他们某一周赚10万美元，而下一周有人出25万美元时，艺人及其经纪人当然就认为，他们的市场价值已有所上升。”
在某些情况下，费用是可以商量的，但正如维斯伯拉特所言，对于许多资深艺人而言，没什么“波动空间”。
为名人的欲望定价是件复杂的事，局外人可能不会从高得离谱的费用中看到什么正当理由。然而，对于一小群极为私秘、极度富裕的个人而言，私人演唱会的益处远远大于成本。
但即便如此，随着对名人的崇拜开始徘徊于荒谬的边缘，些许的克制可能也是件好事。
