Breaking into Retail
Michelle, the Special Events Manager for a major, upscale, multi-location clothing and accessories retailer (aka Department Store) wanted to have more live music at the store’s events. One of the stores’ General Managers (GM) wasn’t about to let it happen on his watch, especially not if drums were involved in any way. Michelle was determined though, so she booked my trio of vibes, bass, and drums for an afternoon performance.
Michelle had us enter the store through an entrance least likely to catch the eye of the store’s GM. We quietly set up in the women’s handbags area, and the drum set was positioned between two tall racks of brand-new leather handbags in an attempt to camouflage my brown drums. From the front of the band, you could only really see the vibes and bass. We were given very explicit instructions to play as softly as possible, even if it meant playing “air drums” at times.
During the second set, she walked around the store with the GM at her side and lead him near the band, without letting him get too close to us. At one point she “guided” him up the escalator to the next floor to make sure he didn’t double back. Her plan was to make sure he couldn’t claim that he hadn’t heard the band, or that it was disruptive to operations or sales, the next time she wanted live music.
We’ll her plan worked. When she put through the purchase order to hire the trio for a second time, her GM pushed back and said “No Drums!”. She then scheduled a meeting with him that showed pictures of our trio from the previous gig and reminded him that he had already heard this band, that it had a quiet drummer, and it was just fine. He then approved the purchase order with the provision that he could stop the band at any moment if/when it got too loud. This was the beginning of a retail relationship for our trio that lasted over a decade and expanded to other major retailers.
The only downside of that day was that my hiding place amongst all those new leather handbags exposed me to the concentrated fumes of the tanning chemicals used in those expensive purses. I left the gig with a massive headache that lasted into the next morning.