NYTimes.com: A bid to make Broadway history by broadcasting a scene from the opening night performance of the musical “Side Show” live in Times Square didn’t come off as planned, though the crowd that gathered to watch in the rain may not have known what they were missing at all.
3 comments:
Someone actually told me about this the other day, and I thought it was an interesting situation. It made sense for them to tape that number to plan for any live performance or taping issues, but it is kind of ironic since the whole point was for that Time Square showing to be a live event as a publicity stunt. Of course, my first thought was, why did they start 23 minutes late on their opening night? I imagine it must have been a stressful bit, while the relevant people were deciding whether or not to make the call to broadcast the previously taped performance. I’d be interested to know whose decision that was and what systems and protocols they had in place to run this, and how much it was involved in the actual running of opening night. It’s a bummer that they were not able to make it work, because it would have definitely been a cool stunt.
I think it's smart to have that back up plan, but the fact that they did have a back up plan like that, did they already know that there was going to be a delay? The whole point for going out to Time Square was to see a live performance, what they should have done was tell the truth. I think the truth is very important. They should have said "due to a late start and a permitting conflicts, we will be airing a pre-recorded live performance. That way people don't believe they're watching a live performance because they're not. Yes it's disappointing but I would be a lot more satisfied if I were told the truth in the first place!
It seems like we might be making mountains out of mole hills. So what if it wasn't live? Times Square is the most expensive advertising location in the entire world. If you bought air time there, you'd better use it. It was great that they had a back up plan.
As for not announcing the substitution, again I don't feel like it's that big if a deal. If someone had not come forth and admitted to the last minute switch, would anyone really have noticed?
What is most curious to me is a Broadway show starting 23 minutes late on opening night. That's a long time. What happened? I would have been more interested in an article focused on the delay and not the video feed substitution.
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