Stars on Ice: How skaters made 'make work' pay off

It's billed as a skating show, featuring Olympic medalists and world champions such as Kurt Browning, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, and Alexei Yagudin. But when HSBC Stars On Ice skates into the Corel Centre tonight, what the audience will see is a business success story come to life.

The reason: In 1984, Olympic and world figure-skating champion Scott Hamilton won Olympic Gold in Sarajevo, then turned pro with the Ice Capades show.

But "after I had spent two years with Ice Capades, the show was bought by another company," Mr. Hamilton recalls. "The new owners felt that a man doesn't sell tickets, and so they didn't renew my contract.

"So I had no other choice but to create my own way of making a living, and Stars on Ice came out of that."

Mr. Hamilton's make-work project succeeded.

Today, HSBC Stars on Ice "is one of the single largest annual tours in Canada," said Byron Allen, who's been producing the Canadian Stars on Ice tour since it started in 1989.

"It is also part of the U.S. Smucker's Stars On Ice tour, which covers 72 cities across North America."

Boasting a cast and crew "in the lows 30s" -- complete with buses, equipment trucks, lighting, and roadies -- Stars On Ice is reminiscent of the Rolling Stones on tour. In fact, "that analogy's honestly just about right," Mr. Allen said.

While Stars On Ice is in Ottawa, Olympic medalist and World champion Elvis Stojko is skating with Chevy Champions On Ice. This 27-city U.S. tour follows on the heels of last fall's 11-city Canon SK8 with Elvis Stojko tour in Canada.

Billed as "'so hot it will melt the ice," Mr. Stojko programmed SK8 to grab the youth market. He hired well-known deejay Chris Shepherd to spin hip-hop tunes, creating a dance club feel to the show.

"We wanted to add something fresh and new to the scene," Mr. Stojko explained, "because the same exhibition style's been going on for a long time."

The evolution of business-savvy skaters is brought into sharp focus by Kurt Browning. He recalled the initial office meeting between his family and agent Michael Barnett.

"I fell asleep on the couch during the meeting, that's how interested I was," Mr. Browning said. "During one of the times when I was awake, I heard Barnett say, 'You're going to make $50,000 next year.'

"That's when I turned to my parents and said, 'This guy doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.' "

As it turned out, Mr. Barnett did. Over the years, Kurt Browning has prospered as a pro skater, and learned how to sell Stars On Ice tickets in the process.

"We market it on the ability of stars like Sale and Pelletier to attract people to the show," Mr. Browning said. "Once we've got them in the door, we want the overall quality of the show itself to bring them back again next year. The goal is to turn people who attend every few years into fans who will be there every show."

With the price of admission, ranging from $35 to $65 a seat, the key is to provide real value, Mr. Browning said. "When I go to Cirque du Soleil, it's an experience that's well worth the money.

"That's exactly what we try to do with Stars On Ice -- make it an experience that people want to attend, and are happy to pay for."

Elvis Stojko has his own marketing approach. His strategy is to promote SK8 hard to his fans but still keep something in reserve so that "they end up getting more than they expect," he said.

"You don't want to go too nuts on the advertising, just to get people in the building to disappoint them."