Bruce Bielenberg once held a hot ticket for a Styx show at the Minnesota State Fair in Minneapolis. This was in “The Grand Illusion” era, before Styx sprung a leak with “Kilroy Was Here,” an album that introduced "Mr. Roboto" to an FM radio audience caught fully unprepared for songs about robots.
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This was also the era before ticket sellers relied on computers to track and verify seats sold at a particular show. Bielenberg had lost his cherished Styx tix, which probably dropped from his pocket at the ring toss or during a spin on The Zipper. And because this was pre-“Kilroy” Styx, he was crestfallen at the idea of missing the crew’s concert at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand. Bielenberg’s last chance to get into the show was to plead with a ticket agent at the fairgrounds to permit him entrance to witness Dennis DeYoung’s hands dance across the Moog synthesizer and wail along to “Come Sail Away.”
“I went up to the lady at the counter and told her what had happened, and she wrote out a pass to get me into the show,” Bielenberg said. “I will always remember that.” Bielenberg is now the lady behind the cage, metaphorically speaking because he is male, as the box office manager at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. I talked to him today as the hotel and AEG Live/Concerts West celebrated The Colosseum’s sixth anniversary with a party on the patio (wait, that’s ZZ Top – the party was in The Colosseum lobby). Refreshments and cake were served, and so were Celine Dion and Jerry Seinfeld, at least in absentia. My man URL (Ubiquitous Robin Leach) is on the case; click here for his breaker/teaser posted earlier from Colosseum LobbyFest ’09.
During our chat in his Colosseum office, the walls of which are adorned with tickets to various shows at the theater that supplanted the great Circus Maximus, Bielenberg did coincidentally note that news about Celine’s desire to return to Caesars had leaked and that her return to the hotel is just fine with him. Big wow factor, still, with Celine, whose show is a true experience even if you’re not necessarily a fan of her music and might favor, say, ’70s-era Styx. “I’m more of a rock 'n' roll guy,” said Bielenberg, who nonetheless was captivated by the highly profitable French-Canadian chanteuse. “I just love Elton John’s show. For me, that’s a fantastic show. You get all of the hits, he still has his original band. Funny, one time we had someone ask if that was really Elton or an impressionist.”
Stephen Sorrentino does a pretty good Elton, yep, but not at $225 a ticket.
What Bielenberg appreciated about Dion was, well, her disposition. She was good to deal with. I’ve talked to all sorts of Caesars Palace, AEG Live and Colosseum employees who dealt with Celine regularly, and I’ve not heard anyone trash her in any sort of aggressive way. Unless she holds some sort of Anthony Cools-like trance over common folk and even high-level executives, she must be a good and kindly person even away from the stage.
During the Celine era, which covered March 2003 through December 2007, Bielenberg had the opportunity to meet and greet fans of all ilk, representing every major continent on the planet (“except for Antarctica, I don’t think we ever had anyone from Antarctica buy a ticket”). One running joke is The Colosseum box office staff learned to say “hello” in 10 different languages, including (just in case) Penguinese, the unofficial language of Antarctica.
Bielenberg said the most rewarding facet of his job is interacting with people, not a surprise given that he’s been in ticket sales for most of his professional life, including three stops in minor league baseball, two in the NBA (for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Houston Rockets) and one in the NHL (for the Phoenix Coyotes, who resemble Bette Midler’s backup dancers … not at all). “Once you get into ticket sales, it’s hard to get out,” he says, laughing, though the job title does elicit the inevitable, “Can you get me in to see Bette Midler?” ticket requests. Even with an in-house e-mail filter to send such requests to the box office staff, Bielenberg is hit with about 40 ticket overtures per day. “I’m almost reluctant to do this (interview), actually,” said Bielenberg, who is not such a self-promoter given his access to hot tickets. “I like selling tickets, but I do get a lot of requests.”
What Bielenberg really disdains is having to tell fans a show has dropped, and Celine did miss quite a few shows – a dozen times she begged out of shows for health reasons, having been treated for a respiratory infection known as mycosplasma bronchitis, which is to vocalists what a sprained ACL is to NFL running backs. Each announcement covered not just a single show, but a set of performances, each of which were at or near The Colosseum’s capacity. Complaints about cancellations are usually leveled first at the ticket agents, and Bielenberg says that one of his more difficult tasks has been to tell fans who have flown thousands of miles and planned for months to see an artist that the show has been called off. “You refund their tickets and say they can still enjoy Las Vegas, but they are here to see Celine,” he said. “That was very difficult.” (Cher, too, begged out of a few November dates, citing throat problems.)
Bielenberg swears that he received less than 10 requests for refunds from disgruntled fans after performances of “A New Day …,” but took one from a guy who complained that Celine sobbed her way through a show the day after her father died.
Suffice to say, his heart won’t go on.
Even before The Colosseum opened, Bielenberg recalls being summoned to emergency duty by AEG Live/Concerts West VP John Nelson when Nelson started working on the Celine shows more than six years ago. Nelson needed someone for the expected avalanche of ticket requests for “A New Day …” and the most logical AEG Live outlet was the Kodak Theatre in L.A. So Bielenberg arranged for two “hot lines,” one for the Kodak Theatre, the other for Celine.
“People who called in probably thought they were calling here,” Bielenberg said, with “here” being Caesars Palace and not L.A. “We took the orders and made it work, though.” In some cases, the guy with the tickets is very much the artist.
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“I’m Tom Hanks, and I’m here to pick up my tickets.” That scene has also unfolded at the Caesars box office, and the person was actually Tom Hanks, not an impressionist. … Once, when Caesars was still looking for support acts to fill The Colosseum after Dion announced her departure, the ads at the “Legends in Concert” at Imperial Palace featured likenesses of Elton John, Bette Midler and Cher impressionists. Months later, all three, for real, were in rotation at Caesars. … The more I hear about the chances of Michael Jackson possibly appearing at The Colosseum, the more convinced I am that everybody who would help make that happen needs to see him actually perform, onstage, over a period of time, to seriously consider signing him for that showroom. These London shows are going to be pretty interesting, I understate. … The most energetic fans so far over the six-year run at The Colosseum might have been those for Stevie Nicks. Not a full-scale production, as is the case with Cher, Midler and John, Nicks has performed more traditional concerts in her dates at the venue, and her fans stand and dance and spin around and, maybe, are possessed in some manner. … Monti Rock III was on hand at LobbyFest ’09, but in a reporting mode, and not, as one might expect, as a possible Colosseum headliner.
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