American Idol Auditions locations bring in the bucks
It seemed so far-fetched at the time that Scotty Colson and Joanne Favaloro had a good hearty laugh at the very thought of the American Idol auditions ever coming to Birmingham, Ala.
Colson, assistant to Mayor Bernard Kincaid, and Favaloro, national sales manager for the Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau, were fantasizing about bringing more big names to the city when Colson joked about hooking the hit show.
Now they’re getting the last laugh. The city that gave the wildly popular FOX television contest two winners in five seasons will host 10,000 to 15,000 entrants at an audition Aug. 21, one of seven cities where the flood of would-be Idols are expected to bring upbeat exposure and ring cash registers.
“You’re talking millions between hotels, rental of the facilities and then the intangibles of when you see your city, your facility highlighted like that on a number one show,” Colson said. “How much is that worth?”
Apparently a whole lot.
Cities from New York and Las Vegas to Honolulu and Anchorage, Alaska have hosted auditions, enjoying the economic boost brought by the influx of thousands of Idol-wannabes who bring a need for food and shelter along with (hopefully) their singing talent.
“You can’t buy advertising like that,” said Scott Johnson, deputy director of North Carolina’s Greensboro Coliseum, which hosted season five auditions. “It’s a tremendous amount of advertising value that’s great for the community, and of course to have all those kids come out here and go on to the show, every time they talked about them, they said they auditioned in Greensboro.”
Season two winner Ruben Studdard began Birmingham’s Idol relationship when he took the title in 2002, Birmingham-born Diana DeGarmo was runner up to Fantasia Barrino in 2003 and suburban Birmingham resident Bo Bice finished second to Carrie Underwood last year.
And then there’s this year’s winner, the silver-haired blues man Taylor Hicks, who jerkily danced his way into America’s heart to win the crown.
That track record helped secure the auditions for Birmingham, Favaloro said. Goodie baskets stuffed with T-shirts, mugs and mementos and sent to producers might have helped a bit, too.
“It was like bidding to host a NCAA regional game. And the hook that we would have on something like this is that with all the Birmingham natives in the event, we certainly deserve a home game,” Colson said, laughing. “Keeping my basketball analogy alive, Duke always gets to play near Duke.”
Speaking of Duke, North Carolina has enjoyed its share of Idol contestants with season three winner Barrino, season two runner-up Clay Aiken and season five finalists Bucky Covington, Kellie Pickler and Chris Daughtry.
The phenomenon that began with winner Kelly Clarkson in 2001 has steadily grown to be one of the highest-rated shows in television history and a major marketing coup for FOX. More than 100,000 thousand hopefuls audition nationwide and the tryouts have been held in 24 cities so far.
Along with Birmingham, this year’s auditions will be held in Los Angeles, San Antonio, Seattle, Minneapolis, East Rutherford, N.J. and Memphis, Tenn. All those are first-timers except LA.
In Minneapolis, auditions are scheduled for Sept. 8 at the Target Center, which is home to the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx. Senior marketing director Sandy Sweetser said the center’s wooing of the show consisted of follow-up phone calls to producers once it was known they had an eye on Minneapolis.
The Irish rockers of U2 drew the center’s biggest concert crowd last September with about 20,000, but the auditions could potentially top that, Sweetser said.
“It’s a major event with major television media,” she said. “It’s almost like a convention and a concert together, so it’s kind of the best of both worlds.”
Dennis Leonard, vice president and general manager of Birmingham’s FOX affiliate, FOX6 WBRC-TV, began courting Idol long before Favaloro and Colson’s brainstorming session, and started calling FOX about a year-and-a-half ago, he said.
Show insiders were impressed with the city’s handling of the complex ferrying of Hicks throughout the state for his homecoming show and the community’s enthusiasm, Leonard said.
“I think that Birmingham wouldn’t have been on the American Idol map” without Studdard, Bice and Hicks, he said, adding that the “Birmingham boys” also joined the campaign to bring the audition to their hometown.
“If you haven’t been in Birmingham during an Idol run, you’re missing out because people in this community really exude their community spirit and getting behind one of their own,” Leonard said.
Season five was the highest rated for FOX, with an average 36.4 million tuning in for the May 24 finale. According to Nielsen Media Research, viewership jumped to almost 43 million the last half hour, which featured a surprise performance by Prince.
Leonard wouldn’t give specifics, but said the advertising revenue from the finale was “equal to 10 Super Bowls for our station.”
Some cities have hosted multiple auditions. Los Angeles, where the show is based, leads the pack with four hostings. New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Austin, Texas have hosted auditions three times.
Gary Bond, who directs Austin’s Film and TV office, said the auditions had a significant economic impact on a university town that’s seen a good share of filming projects.
“Always this kind of thing puts a little sparkle on the town. You do the Real World, the Friday Night Lights series here … all of that stuff helps to keep the media spotlight,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s worth when somebody says, “Listen, Austin is the hottest thing going,’ but I have the notion it’s worth quite a bit and you can’t buy that kind of thing.”
Johnson, the director in Greensboro, has some advice to this year’s picks.
“Trot out the stuff to them that’s the best. We show them the barbecue, we show them the music, we show them the restaurants. Put your best where it does the most good,” he said.
But he also has a few words of caution.
“They’re having fun, you might be getting great exposure. But they’re going to poke a little fun at people trying out (who weren’t) very good,” Johnson said. “You’ve got to take the good with the bad and you can’t really control that. But the good far outweighs any bad you might have.”
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