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Entertainment at the Evergreen State Fair, Monroe, Wash., may be changing soon, in no small part to a set of e-mail messages being sent to former attendees by TBA Entertainment asking their likes and dislikes in potential musical selections at the fair.
In Billings, Mont., Bill Chiesa, general manager of MetraPark, home of the Montana Fair and other events, already has booked in 3 Doors Down and Lifehouse based on e-mails he sent out and got back from 28 high school seniors who visited his fairgrounds as part of a school program.
"I asked them,How many of you have e-mail addresses?' and 30 out of 32 did. And so they have been my bridge. I'm nearing 60 and I've never heard of them. I have to spend $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, $100,000, so I e-mail these kids and have them rank the bands on a scale of 1 to 10."
The methods may be a bit different, but the idea remains the same. Fairs, facing a shake-up in the entertainment world - from an increase in competition from other events to a decrease in the popularity of country music - want to get more feedback from their fans. The Internet, already in use by some fairs as a way to sell tickets to...