Interview: Opium Group’s Carlos Correal Part 4

By Baris on March 3rd, 2010
 

Here we have part 4 of Carlos Correal’s awesomely informative interview. If you haven’t been keeping up with this interview you can read parts 1-3 here. In this part of the interview, Carlos shares some ideas on how his company Opium Group uses social media to connect with the fans and promote shows like no other. His approach is to continually set the bar higher and is moving the old slapped together gigs out the window for beautifully produced shows that impress even the most die hard hip-hop fans. There are some true gems in this one so take the time to read it thoroughly.

PROMOTE EARLY, PROMOTE HARD

Baris: So you need to educate your customers?

Carlos: Not just simply send a flyer with the name of the DJ. Right now people need more information. And on top, with the economic crisis we are going through, they need as much information as possible.  You need to find the key element that makes people excited. If people don’t know DJ Chuckie but I tell them he is the one who made the remix I am a Miami Bitch with LMFO,  they’re gonna wake the fuck up. That’s how you get them.

Baris: But how do you communicate with them, what tools do you use?

Carlos: We use Facebook a lot.  We have a massive fan page for every venue.  MySpace is useless – more than ever – for our needs. We don’t use it that much. We started creating websites for Mansion, SET and Louis:  Every website works on the same skeleton mechanism where you can download pictures, share the pictures of the night with your friends, you can tweet them, every event you have, you can share them. We are giving them all the tools they need to easily share all of the event information.

We all know that social media works unbelievably. We even started producing mini videos for events. Because those little mini videos are the most viral things ever. We used to do animated e-vites 8 years ago in Montreal.

Baris: ha ha

Carlos: Flash animations, etc.  It really didn’t have that effect cause we didn’t have facebooks, etc. Now they are like little movie trailers. It has to excite you. Swedish House Mafia understood.  Fedde Le Grand understood. A few artists understood the impact of those elements have in their promotion. It’s increasing their profile as well.

So our main goal here is, we are not here just to book the biggest act, we are here to book the next coming act, what is the next big thing? and when we see that the magic happens, we make a two year planning with the artist. This is what we want to do for the next two years. And our advantage here as a company is that we are like a mini Live Nation. We own our venues, we own one in Vegas and here in Hollywood, FL. And we book and promote and produce our own shows. So we have the control on everything.

Baris: So far, we’ve talked about how you communicate with the clubbers. What are you doing to expand your market and reach out to a new audience?

Carlos: At the end, your best publicity is the public that come and attend your event. When they think it’s amazing,  they will share it with their friends.  So people who didn’t come and attend the show will say “Next time this guy is in town, I will show up”. At the end, personally, I’d love to take as much of the hip-hop out of this city and convert the whole city to house music.  And I’ve been doing this. Now the house music shows are bigger than ever in Miami, ever. We really make them like concerts. You go buy your ticket from wantickets.com and you come to the show. Everything is promoted like a concert.  And we promote every show,  because we have DJ shows every weekend, we take a minimum of 2 months for the promotion.  We don’t do that crap 3 weeks in advance. Forget about that. That does not work. You have to promote 2 months ahead. And because now the way the agencies are organized, I can book an artist ayear ahead. So the Deadmau5 show we had for my birthday, we promoted that show for 5 months. it as sold out. First time we have a sold out show with Deadmaus. So now the competition in this city is seeing what I am doing and they are waking up and they are starting to promote earlier.

Baris: So basically the way you approach your event and the way you promote it will determine the outcome: If you treat it like a big event, the level of anticipation and attendance will be in accordance.

MANAGING THE BRAND – ARTWORK MATTERS
Carlos: The whole idea that how you promote it and make it like a big event is what are the communication tools that you have. How does the artwork look like? Is it a crappy artwork or is it a good one? We have started to produce the artwork for the tours of certain DJs right now because when the agents saw and loved the artwork we did, we supplied it to them free of charge so that they can give them to all of their promoters. Because we care so much about the artist profile. Not all the promoters have a good graphic designers. So sometimes the artwork I see for an artist, in LA, or in Boston, or whatever is so crappy, you want to puke.
Baris: I am with you on that.
Carlos: The way the artist is presented in the marketing material is the primary thing. Does it look serious? Something for adults or for stupid kids?
Baris: It is a part of managing your brand, right? You got a stake at every event. You cannot let somebody mess up with that.
Carlos: It starts with the logo of the company. You don’t know the company. The first thing you see is the logo. What does it make you feel? It’s like you don’t know this woman but she is dressed well and she’s got a great body. That is what you see. May be she is a fucked up woman in the head. But you don’t know that but she is very pretty. The logo of the company is the presentation of who you are. It’s the same when you do artwork for the artist.  What do you want people to feel happy or do you want them to say “oh my god, this is going to be a fucking serious show, it’s gonna be hardcore”. You know, if it is a techno event, I am not going to do a soulful flyer. And if I don’t like the pictures supplied to me by the artist, then I am going to contact the agency  and management directly and get the right type of picture to promote the show correctly.
Baris: Do you have an in house design shop?
Carlos: Yes, we do. We do everything in house like American Apparel.

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