Dave Fortune reached back to the days of analogue music to resurrect a trusted brand for the concert production arm of DLE Group, his fledgling digital-focused company.
"A little bit of research found the Perryscope name had been dropped by Molson, and it was available, so we did the task of going and getting it," managing partner Fortune told Business in Vancouver. "We wanted a name that was recognizable, a name brand that meant something to some people. It was, if anything, a complete salute to the people that I believe did a great job."
Perryscope, founded by Riley O'Connor and Norman Perry in 1977, put Vancouver on the North American rock-touring map. The promotion and production outfit was swallowed in a series of mergers beginning in the mid-1990s.
The industry has changed in many ways since the original Perryscope, but what remains a constant is the desire for fans to share collective experiences around live music. Older fans remember camping out overnight at box offices for hot tickets and bonding with like-minded friends and strangers by wearing their favourite band T-shirts at parties and in public.
T-shirts remain a big moneymaker and fashion statement, but today's trendsetting younger music consumers rely on mobile phones, social media networks and apps for interaction.
Fortune is intent on harnessing the power of modern social media to create a user-friendly experience, from the moment tickets are bought online to video greetings delivered by artists to smartphone-toting fans heading home after a show.
Fortune said the music industry's business model was broken for the better part of a decade. Fans reacted to being overcharged for compact discs by jumping on the free file-sharing bandwagon, a trend since arrested by Apple's market-leading iTunes service.
Artists became reliant on live show sales, but even hardcore fans balked at high ticket prices and low accessibility because of pre-sale deals cut by promoters and venues.
Ernst & Young's 2011 music and entertainment survey estimated that the value of the global recorded music industry dropped by 31% over seven years, but the digital music market exploded by 1,000%.
Figures compiled for 2010 by SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, showed rapidly declining recorded music sales intersected with rising revenue from publishing and Internet and mobile devices.
Live concert revenue, meanwhile, was charting its own rise, hitting $600 million in Canadian ticket sales.
Fortune, a former Live Nation vice-president of production for Canada, left the company after completing the LiveCity Vancouver project during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
"I wear it as a badge of honour. The time came to move along, and when time came I had been talking to a couple of friends of mine in passing about BlackBerry's role with the (2009) U2 tour and how frankly ridiculous I felt that engagement was.
"They spent a ton of money essentially for a bunch of banners in the venue," said Fortune, 45.
"Nobody from BlackBerry was showing how to engage fans with the show through their device.
"It's one thing to put your name and sponsorship banner on the front of an event or the advertising to an event, it's completely another thing when you can marry yourself to engagement with a customer on a direct manner."
He consequently set out to develop a company, Digital Live Entertainment, that could unite the disparate forces of radio, film, TV, recording and touring, "so we can all figure out how the advertiser can get product placement or we can figure out ways of different revenue coming in so the artist can have a nice, comfortable living and can be rewarded for their music being heard by millions."
Said the North Burnaby father of two: "We don't live in these vertical silos anymore. We live on this horizontal plain that's arranged with zeros and ones."
Fortune's musical epiphany came when he drove with a friend from Calgary to Vancouver to see The Clash play Kerrisdale Arena in 1982.
As a high schooler at Bishop Carroll in Calgary, he rented the Knights of Columbus Hall to produce gigs for classmates. "I paid $75 for rent and $125 for damage deposit, which I rarely got back."
At the University of Calgary, he worked for the Alma Mater Society doing everything from taking tickets to being a bouncer. "You learn the craft, almost by osmosis."
After graduation, Fortune joined independent label Cargo Records as marketing and public relations representative in 1991-92 and then tour manager for punk band SNFU until 1996. Production work beckoned with Panther Management and led to a contract with MCA Concerts.
MCA eventually merged with the original Perryscope to become Universal Concerts. When the company took on the House of Blues brand, Fortune produced Grey Cup halftime shows from 2002 to 2005, featuring Bryan Adams in Regina, the Tragically Hip in Ottawa and Black Eyed Peas in Vancouver.
Seattle-based D.C. Parmet, tour manager for Elton John, has known Fortune for 15 years.
"He's fantastic to work with, he's always got a great attitude, always even keel," Parmet said. "In a business full of drama queens both onstage and offstage, he's a breath of fresh air.
"With Dave you have to do a show once, pretty much he knows what to do and anticipates the things you need or the things you want changed. Instead of being reactionary, he's a man of action."
DLE has a staff of eight and investment from silent partners. Fortune is planning to move from FortisBC Centre in downtown to Gastown before the end of the year.
He said he has secured $500,000 in initial financing and is awaiting another $500,000.
Perryscope has produced a series of successful shows at the Vogue Theatre featuring locals Hey Ocean and Said the Whale and rock legend Ray Davies.
It has also collaborated and consulted with others in the city, such as AEG and Portland's Monqui for the Ben Harper and Tenacious D concerts at the 2012-launched PNE Amphitheatre. The fairtime action bowl's 4,500-capacity is ideal for shows too big for Stanley Park's Malkin Bowl and too small for Burnaby's Deer Lake.
"Business is transferring into a more collective environment, more joint ventures, more working in collaborative partnerships," he said.
Fortune said DLE is planning to adopt marketing techniques from retail and telecommunications industries.
He talks of bundling tickets with T-shirts and albums, and offering frequent buyer, customer loyalty programs.
"We can reward fans who are repeat customers, who are the true believers of the music industry and are the ones that should not be penalized because they're buying tickets to the show," he said.
"If I bought 10 tickets this year from Perryscope, why shouldn't I be rewarded with a free ticket or a discount?
"The airline industry has been doing it for years with frequent flyer programs." •
