Do What You Want And Call It A Job

In early August, 1985 I received a call from Andy Krawchuk. Andy was in charge of entertainment for the Triple Five Corporation. They owned West Edmonton Mall and quite a few regional retail properties, hotels and nightclubs. Andy had booked 200+ local entertainers and had secured the materials for 17 stages as well as the services of 600+ volunteers for the grand opening of the final phase on Sept 11, 1985. Aside from the stages and entertainers, there were several more massive physical undertakings that he was trying to get together to create something larger than anyone had ever seen in the city before. Unfortunately he had been turned down by several professionals who cited that he had already set up the elements of a show and that they didn't want to merely organize the event. Although I was very hesitant to take the job I thought that it would be an opportunity to get established at home and finally get off of the road.

The next four weeks were a nightmare. I spent countless hours walking the site, studying plans and meeting with the different factions that would make up the show. I was sleeping in my car and only going home every few days for a shower. The building was being fast tracked and what was on a plan today very often turned into something completely different tomorrow. I was not in the construction loop and I would sometimes only find out about a critical change when an area was disrupted and well into construction. Many times this conflicted with my event plan but it was up to me to adapt. What became the most frustrating was that everything was hand written or typed and every change meant redoing all or most of the charts and documents. There were many times that I just wanted to forget the whole thing but I kept telling myself that it was too late and that if I quit that I would be on the road forever.

The night of the event came and it was a zoo. They estimated that well over 100,000 people attended and it was shoulder to shoulder all night. I was stationed in the Security Dispatch office and had 50 people on radios in more than 40 positions. As the people starting pouring in they not only made it difficult for the entertainers to reach the stages from some of the dressing room areas but many of the stages were being over run by people using them to cross to the other side of the walkways that we were using. The people behind didn't realize that they were about to cross a stage and they just kept pushing forward. The calls were coming in that the schedules were starting to get messed up and I told everyone to do the best that they could and not to get upset at the situation. It was something that we couldn't control and all we could do was ride it out and have as good as time as possible.

At the end of the night I was congratulated by everyone in upper management and hailed as some sort of hero. I can't say if things would have gone smoothly under perfect conditions but under the circumstances everything was considered a huge success and I got a lot of the credit. I was offered a job as the Entertainment Director but I had to turn it down as I was scheduled to be on a Reveen tour in a week. However, it preyed on me for a year and in August, 1986 I called Selma Linzer, the mall manager, to see if they were still interested in my services. I started a week later and stayed for seven years.

For the first year I worked almost exclusively as an entertainment director. Triple Five were courting international bankers for other projects and they were using West Edmonton Mall as a showcase. It was my job to have lots of entertainment and activities going on during the tours and to coordinate with the engineers to have features such as fountains etc running as the tour came by. We would plan and rehearse the tour but inevitably one of the Ghermezian brothers would take a splinter group and head off in an unknown direction, sending us into a panic mode. A security officer would stay with them and try to anticipate their next moves. They were always fun and never dull.

I had inherited a three man crew and we took care of the staging and audio for fashion shows. We also maintained the directories, supplied tables and chairs for tenants and did the seasonal decorations. I was given control of the common area and part of that responsibility was regulating and maintaining use for private and public community groups for awareness, promotions and fund raising. It was a stroke but the mall is an important part of the community and I took the responsibility seriously. At the time that I took over there were as many as 12 cars being raffled in the mall and aside from the obvious overkill some of the booths were down right shoddy and unappealing to the tenants. I soon instituted a program that kept the number of cars to four and I set up rules for appearance, operation and conduct.

In late 1987 the Eatons Centre opened and it signaled the end of capital funding for Triple Five. There had been no new projects secured and we were going to have to exist within the operating budget of the mall. The clowns and the jugglers were to be no more. I went to Selma with a concern that my services were no longer needed and that I should move on. She told me that she wanted me to be there in case that my talents were needed and that I should figure out what I wanted to do and give it a title. After about 3 months I came up with the title 'Operations Director of Promotions' and basically kept the duties that I was still doing up to then.

The promotions department was an ever changing office and as people left their duties would be picked up by whoever wanted to do them and when the new person would come on board they would be given some of the duties that no one else wanted. Most of the newcomers were young and eager to work in the department so it was rarely a problem. It was a department where people worked together so no element was ever left out or ignored, regardless of who had the responsibility. Eventually I ended up with the electronic sign boards, the directories, the music & on hold telephone messages and the mall's music and paging systems. 

After a few years my job included making sure that we did no promotions that cost the mall money and I soon got rid of my crew with the exception of one. I set up a permanent stage for fashion shows and entertainment and put together a simple audio system and small portable stage for miscellaneous areas.

I outsourced the few jobs that needed any intense labor and I handled the rest with my assistant. The theory was that it took as much effort to do a small promotion as it did for a large one and that we would simply remove the facilities and deal with each on an individual basis depending on budgets. It was cheaper to outsource the materials than to have them on hand and deal with distribution and inventory control.

After hosting a fantastic high end racing display that was very well received, and free, I started encouraging companies to set up their traveling corporate displays in the mall; selling the huge regional draw to their advantage. Within a year we were hosting at least six major events that attracted tens of thousands of people. I encouraged several entertainers to perform in exchange for selling their tapes and CDs on site. I had a deal with the local heritage foundation to supply ethnic entertainment each Saturday and Sunday to promote their summer festival each year. I encouraged tourism and public interest groups to have displays and I would regularly host school art projects. I even organized a cattle auction on our ice rink with 30+ champion steers and 500+ buyers seated on the floor. We had a lot of various entertainment going on and I was barely lifting a finger or spending any money.

more to come..........................................