Back To The Show

Before we get back to more details of the big day, here’s a quick update on yesterday. We woke up at 5:15 after getting to bed at 1:30 in the morning. Yes the misses is still sleeping! We made it to the Austin Airport on time and were in our first class seats (thankfully) for wheels up at 8:25 CST. When we landed it was about 10 degrees with light snow. We quickly jumped in the car and headed off to get the boys. The rest of the day was spent resting and more resting until we finally fell asleep around 7 or 8. Tonight there’s another show in Orlando and even though we’re not there, the misses has some coordination to do for some of our guests. Next is another show on Valentines Day in Ft. Lauderdale.

Now back to the big event. On Friday we showed up at the Frank Erwin Center which is part of the University of Texas. After getting through 3 layers of security, we made it in. We had a load of fresh flowers (red roses and black calla lillies) the misses had flown in. Upon arrival we met Rachel and she and the misses exchanged big hugs as they felt they knew each other from talking on the phone 10 times a day for 2 weeks. She was super helpful throughout the whole thing. We walked into the Lone Star Room which was a big sterile looking space that had to be transformed within 6 hours for the party. The misses went straight to work organizing the crew and rearranging the furniture with the help of the stadium staff. Meanwhile, Laura (our Brand girl) had Antonio and a few helpers wrapping the rest of the gifts for guests.  The gifts were wrapped in thick ivory paper printed with the black “August Wine Group” logo, red ribbon and topped with 2 hand painted, hand crafted truffles in cello wrap.  They ran out of red ribbon halfway through the gifts, but the misses had in her bag of tricks 60 yards of sheer black ribbon just in case it might be needed. To make a long story short, 6 hours later, the place looked like a completely different room. I took off around 2:30 to go meet Andrea and Alberto (his brother) at the Intercontinental Hotel about a mile away. Andrea always checks into his hotels under a funny nickname from when he was a child. (can’t tell you as he still uses it everywhere and I know some of you would tell someone, ha ha) We walked into the bar and soon Andrea came down with his helper who guides him around. He just holds onto his shoulder and walks with since he’s blind. He walked up to us and as soon as I could say Ciao, Doug, he said “ah Colorado”. You see he knows my voice well enough and when we first met and I told him where I live, so he jokingly calls me Doug Colorado. We exchanged a few hellos but he doesn’t talk much right before a show s he needs to save his voice. Then Alberto walks in and joins us and we spend the next 45 minutes telling him how the reception will go and what we need him and Andrea to say and do. We leave about the same time Andrea and his entourage comes back down and everyone gets into waiting black suburbans. It was like some surreal event you see in movies as the hotel had tons of plain clothes security guys all around us. We all made it back to the arena at the same time and I quickly grabbed the misses who’d been getting the photographer she hired, all set up. More on him later but what a great guy and talent. He’s taken photos of everyone from U2 to Angelina Jolie and was such a pro that every single picture he took was perfect. This was important because when we ushered 60 some people through a line later that night, he only had 1 shot to get each groups photo right, and they all were. We rushed back to the hotel to shower and change and then headed back to the arena.

The misses here, Mister went to the gym, lucky guy!

The Show.  Andrea Bocelli. Wow!!!  I have never heard such a pure, beautiful, touching voice in my entire life.  I had the chills with every note he sang.  There were so many tears in the crowd…I had a big lump in my throat, but I knew if I shed one tear… the gates would open and there would go my make up.  I would at that point look like I should be at a Barnum and Bailey Circus instead of the Opera.  There was a full blown orchestra and choir complete with a conductor in tux and tails. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to enjoy the whole show, because we had to check on the last minute details for the Artist’s Reception.

Good thing we went back…the Prosecco needed to be poured, the wines needed to be opened….the 130 votive candles needed to be lit…the hors d’ordourves needed to be placed and the microphone had yet to arrive.  We got everything handled and had a few minutes to spare before the guests arrived.

Upon entering the room, to the right was the check in table saturated with the gifts (red and black bows) after party credentials, (backstage passes), Bocelli wine information, rose petals and a giant 4 foot cylinder vase with 3 huge red roses staggered down inside.  In the center was a rectangular brushed chrome table with a lifted plexiglass top.  Under the plexiglass was shimmering ivory fabric with clear cylinder glasses  and four square bowls filled with black calla lillies  and strawberries for support.  On the top of the table were 30 flutes filled with Prosecco and 30 goblets of red wine.  The table was scattered with rose petals, beautiful Bocelli wine booklets another cylinder vase with red roses and black calla lillies and  a spot light shining down on it.  The table really was lovely.  The 17 cocktail tables were covered in black, tied with red satin bows, sprinkled with rose petals, 3 votives and in the center a 3 inch cylindrical vase….a.k.a….a round rocks glass, because the 3x3x3 square vases I ordered arrived as 1 1/2×1 1/2×1 1/2 much, much too small.  The rose heads were bigger than the vases and would topple out.  Thank goodness for “in-house” glassware.

Laura, the Brand Director for the Mr. and partner’s company had 20x 24 foam boards printed with beautiful Tuscan scenery and Bocelli family digital photos on them staggered throughout the room on easels…as well as two 6 foot screens of the Bocelli wine and Prosecco bottles printed.  The bottles were flanking the projector screen that had a giant image of Andrea, the company logo and a lovely sentimental text printed on it.

Rachel, my “Go to lady” at The Erwin Center gave me the heads up on Mr. Bocelli being “En Route” to the reception…..more to come….

Mister here, Ok, I’m back from the gym and the grocery store. Back to the actual event. As the misses just described, the room looked fantastic. She personally transformed this empty space into such a beautiful setting. About 15 minutes after the show, we got the word that Andrea was on the way. Right before he came in my partner Josh and I both spoke to the guests. We welcomed them and then I kindly gave them a set of rules that they had to abide by. These included no going up to him and touching or grabbing him and no unauthorized close up photos. I said how gracious he was in giving us some time and that I would try to get everyone a photo with him but couldn’t guarantee it. Everyone seemed to understand but people get funny when they meet or get close to a star and tend to forget how to behave.

As soon as I was through speaking I went over to talk with the promoters who I had met earlier and wanted to talk to me about working together later this year on events in NY, Chicago, Houston and a couple of more cities. While I was doing this I saw Andrea and Mark and Pete (from the production and management company) coming in. Mark looked at the misses and said “who’s going to introduce him?”. The misses seeing me talking with the promoters had no choice but to grab the wireless microphone and announce to the crowd, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Andrea and Alberto Bocelli”. The crowd was mesmerized and broke into applause. Andrea was still in his tux and walked to the misses make shift stage to address the crowd. he was so genuine and couldn’t have done a better job talking about his family and wine if we had wrote him a script. In short, he said how he remembered growing up with his grandfather making wine and how big a part of his life the family farm (vineyards) and wine is. He said he could never imagine that people here in America would be drinking his wine and this made him very happy and proud. After a few more minutes, Alberto began talking in Italian, with Antonio translating. Andrea stood to the side and was backing up when the misses noticed he was going to back right into one of the large photos on an easel. She rushed to his side and whispered to him who she was, “Lori from Colorado”, (which at least gave him some comfort knowing she was my wife) and told him the easel and photo were right behind him and he was close to backing into it. He asked her where Charlie (his bodyguard and assistant) was, and she said she’d find him right away. He (Charlie) walked in a minute later and I told him in my broken italian that Andrea needed help. Meanwhile the misses was patiently standing with him holding his arm until Charlie (his names really Carlo, there is no Charlie in Italian) got to his side. Next we immediately ushered him over to where we had our make shift photo studio set up. I grabbed our most important guests first and moved them to the front of the line to make sure they got a picture as we didn’t know how long Andrea would feel like staying. The misses and Mark (production manager) ushered groups from 2 to 4 in very quickly to stand next to Andrea and get a photo from our photographer. Meanwhile I decided who went when and how many had to be in each photo, oh what power, ha ha. Pete and I kept a careful watch on Andrea and how he was doing and were deciding if and when we needed to stop this insanity. For a moment, imagine if you can, being blind and having groups of 2 to 4 or even 6 people coming up to you, talking to you and putting their arms around you (only a few did this and I stopped it pretty quick) to get a photo. The misses and I could watch his expression go from one of happiness to one of “get me out of here”. To his credit, he said he let everyone get a photo and I think we buzzed almost 60 people through in less than 12 minutes. Andrea then said his goodbye, and left via a back door. At this time, our guests were thrilled beyond belief. Now came time for me and my partners to work the room developing relationship and selling containers of Bocelli wine! Alberto and his wife Cinzia and their daughter stayed the whole time until we left at 12:30. We have some fun photos of us and Alberto and Cinzia as Brian (the photographer) was getting us left and right.

In the liquor business, these big accounts get wined and dined like you wouldn’t believe. $5000 dinners are common, Super Bowl tickets, trips around the World and so on. However, most if not all guests, personally told me they’ve never been to an event or experienced anything like this in their whole career or life. I was repeatedly complimented for being able to put something like this on. Now all I really did for the event, was take charge and put the misses in charge, then help approve the misses budget and make sure Andrea and Alberto knew what to say. The misses was really in charge of the whole thing and it came off without a hitch. And trust me, there were tons of things that could have gone wrong! So I have lots of phone calls and probably a trip or two to Texas but we’re all sure we nailed the thing and will sell tons of wine from this single event. I told my partner that we could have spent 10 times as much money and it still would have been a bargain. All in all, I think we spent maybe $25,000 or $30,000 on everything.

The rest 0f the evening was spent developing relationships with our guests and hanging out with Alberto and Cinzia and our friends. The too were very pleased. Oh, I almost forgot, when the misses gave them their chocolates and they realized they were made with one of their family wines, they were very very touched. Cinzia joked that she was not sharing any with anyone. Alberto, who I’ve known quite well for about 3 or 4 years now, had never met the misses. She, of course looked quite striking and stood out in the crowd and when Antonio told him that was my wife, he came up to me and said , “ah Doug, complimenti”, which loosely, as you’d imagine, translates to compliments. But in italian, it means so much more. Cinzia and Alberto were thrilled to hear we will be there for Teatro de Silencio, Andreas outdoor concert in his home town, this coming July. I’m sure we’ll be with them for a few days besides the concert. So, we finally made it out to our waiting black suburban (I love having a driver) about 12:30 and made it to our hotel and in bed by 1:30.

You all should be very proud of the misses as I am, and is everyone in my company. My partner and coworker both texted and called to say what a great job and event I and the misses put on and that they wish they could put into words what a great job we did. She definitely was key to making this entire launch hugely successful.

In closing, it looks like we’ll be starting an event company next week. She has already been asked (as I said earlier) to handle the upcoming events for Andrea later this year and in 2013. This morning she received an email from Rachel at the University of Texas who said she’d be referring her to various clients as well, so off we go. Of course this means I’ll need to come up with some money to get things up and running, so you’d better get in line to invest now!  But one things for sure, the misses is a natural and very talented and oh yea, was the most beautiful woman in the room. This was reinforced time and time again as everyone kept telling me all night long how lovely she was. In fact, I think I’ll tell her to look a little uglier and be a little meaner next time as she was too nice and cute!

We’ll try to send some pictures, we have about 50 that we brought home but the photographer will be sending us a bunch more.

Today is a movie for the boys and then winter swim (swim team practice) starts every Sunday to get the boys ready for the upcoming season. It’s always something.

For me, I’m on a strict diet of vegetables, egg whites, protein shakes, and chicken breasts. The misses and I also need to start an Italian immersion program right away as she needs some basic Italian language knowledge now that she’ll be doing all these Bocelli events. I too can always use more practice as I only speak enough to get by. So have a great day, glad we’re home and God Bless.

LLF