Fancy a drink with Arnie? Here’s your chance: on 15 November, he will be appearing for a 90-minute onstage interview at the Lancaster hotel in London. A top-price ticket will get you a front-row seat, an intimate champagne reception with him and a photo opportunity. All for a mere £2,100.
Vulgar exploitation or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Whatever it is, expect to see more of it. Meet and greets have been rampant in the music world for years, but one promoter is bringing them into the film arena, with much success. It began with An Evening with Pacino at the London Palladium in June 2013; Sylvester Stallone and John Travolta followed, and there are further megastars to come.
Rocco Buonvino is a frank, affable chap from West Yorkshire (“Italian descent, so I’m half-Italian, half-Bradford”) who began as a hairdresser before moving into music promotion, and has since worked with Rod Stewart, the Chemical Brothers and Cliff Richard. After doing what he calls “fundraising” for a couple of recent Pacino films produced by a mutual friend, Buonvino persuaded the actor to bring his one-man show – bit of standup, bit of Q&A – to London, and it sold out in 48 hours. Pacino recommended him to “certain people” and the Stallone, Travolta and Schwarzenegger bookings followed, although the format post-Pacino is less one-man show, more Q&A, with interviewers such as Jonathan Ross and Barry Norman moderating.
Cheap seats have previously cost £50 or so, but the cheapest Schwarzenegger ones (no frills, no meet and greet) are £126, rising to £385 for premium seats, then £2,100 for the whole VIP shebang. Presumably these prices are in part due to the amount of money Buonvino is paying these stars to come here. “Very much so, big time,” he says. “I have to bring in x amount of money to cover the artist costs and the production. These artists are not cheap – I pay them in excess of $300,000 each. This is why I’m picking particular artists, whom I know the fans are prepared to pay for.” As such he’s going for the big guns – saying no to offers from actors such as Roger Moore: “There’s no way on this earth somebody will pay £2,000 to meet Roger Moore,” he says, matter of factly. “No offence, I love Roger, I know him.”
The higher seat prices for Schwarzenegger also reflect the Lancaster’s 1,100 capacity, half the size of the Palladium. And the less Buonvino has to pay for the talent, the cheaper the tickets will be, he says. Besides, is it exploitation if people are happy to pay? “When you look at the pricing it looks a bit disgusting,” says Wendy Mitchell, editor of Screen International. “Like these people are pimping themselves out to pose for selfies for the highest bidder. And people are obsessed with celebrity, now more than ever, wanting the picture for their Twitter page immediately. But having said all that, a friend of mine went to the Pacino one and said it was a really entertaining night – £126 to watch two people in chairs talking is a heck of a lot, but if he’s paying them a lot, then people have to pay a lot. And it sounds like it’s working.”
It is. The sellout crowds are markedly more riotous than those at your average post-screening interview. The stars enter to deafening fanfares and ovations, and the general vibe is hero worship, with more whooping, hollering and marriage proposals than regular Q&As. The actors appear to enjoy it. Travolta brought people on to the stage and taught them some Pulp Fiction and Grease moves. Much of the Stallone event in Manchester was besieged by catcalling and declarations of love, while Tina from Shrewsbury showed the star her tattoo of his autograph, asked for a kiss and was obliged (“He has the most beautiful hands,” she later told the Manchester Evening News). Encouraged, one gentleman then requested a hug from Stallone and clambered on to the stage, only to be manhandled off by security.
“We’re dealing with fanatics,” says Buonvino. “Someone came in with a Rambo knife, wanting it to be signed. I said: ‘You’re not coming in with a Rambo knife.’ What possesses you to bring a Rambo knife to a venue? We’ll probably get more mad fans for Arnie than we would do for Stallone, so we’ve doubled up the security.”
These crowds are extra exuberant, he suggests, “because people are paying good money”. At these prices, they’ve literally earned the right to have a good time.
The champagne receptions that offer only 30 places are more controlled, although Buonvino admits they are a worry. He begins by personally inviting “clients I’ve worked with and know” and people on his database, but anyone can buy a ticket. He vets all requests and has rejected some from people he has been warned about by the actor’s management. “I’m always on standby,” he says, “because these people might be freaks beyond belief, and instead of having a social, intimate meet and greet we might get a fanatic who wants to be glued to them. So it does scare me a bit, because we don’t know exactly who we’re gonna get.” The lucky few will, however, genuinely have 30 minutes with the star: “Ample time to mingle and chat with him, have photographs and a drink of champagne or some nibbles.”
Buonvino has much experience with meet and greets at concerts, but for these film events he wanted to step up the game so that “you’re not in and out, you’re spending time with the star. It’s only 30 people, we keep it elite, and that’s why you pay good money for it.”
There are even further levels of hospitality for the so-inclined one percenters. Emma-Jane Brown, a former showjumper who runs a concierge company, is now working with Buonvino, providing services for clients who want extra pampering, including limo or helicopter pickups and haute cuisine meals. Her clients, she explains, are “high-net-worth individuals who want to be looked after 100% when they go to an event. They don’t just buy a ticket from Ticketmaster and go and watch.”
This is a new venture for Buonvino, and not everything has been smooth. One fan took to an online Stallone forum, disenchanted with the VIP experience in Manchester. “The actual VIP room was a locker room with a curtain hiding some urinals,” he wrote, while Stallone reportedly left early. Buonvino confirms this, citing hiccups with the co-promoters. Stallone was late to the event because he “got stuck in traffic on the M6 for four hours,” was tired, and the photo-op was over-booked – after having to smile for photos 100 times, “Sly got fed up,” he says. “The venue backstage was smelly, hot, the air-conditioning wasn’t working, it was so uncomfortable. It was a terrible room.” Were there really urinals in it? “Yes. It was disgusting.” Ticketholders who didn’t get their photos were refunded.
This was a one-off and it won’t happen again, he says. From the Schwarzenegger event on, he is “in full control. Nothing will go without passing me, and I’ll be there non-stop.” He wants to do one of these things every two months, and has ambitious plans. Early next year he’s bringing over Dustin Hoffman and Sophia Loren, and he is in talks with Harrison Ford, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas and even Eddie Murphy, who would be a huge coup.
Despite the fact that punters seem more than willing to pay these prices, what does it say about the actors? “It doesn’t feel very glamorous – I think it takes the shine off them a little bit if they’re willing to do a Q&A for money like that,” says Mitchell. “It feels like these stars are commodities, things you can sell. I don’t know if these things are disgusting, or just that that’s the modern world. Probably somewhere in between.”
