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Adam Gill
Written by noiZe Staff
Often in the world of large gay-themed events, the well-known promoters that noiZe profiles are intimately familiar with the gay party scene, being gay themselves. It’s not often you find a young, driven heterosexual behind the scenes of a gay mega-production. Enter Adam Gill, President of Embrace Productions, at age twenty-six. He cut his teeth early at the entertainment behemoth Clear Channel. While at Winter Music Conference a few years back, he ran into Michael Perlmutter, a friend who did all of the music for Queer As Folk and the related compilations. Adam came up with the daring concept of taking the fictitious Babylon club from the show on a national tour, complete with truckloads of the actual set. He left Clear Channel to start his own company and hit the road. The tour was wildly successful, but quickly outgrew the limiting concept of the television tie-in. Now in its fifth year, the Babylon tour continues to evolve as Adam and Midori bring us Arctic Babylon, which kicks off in Atlanta on April 21st.
Adam got to know some of the big name DJs of the gay set in Montreal, while he worked the Friday night straight events at Stereo. The Babylon experience has given him a respect for the power of gay events, and with Darren Bryant by his side to navigate through gay waters, Embrace Productions is set to tackle their gayest adventure yet: Toronto Pride. Pulling in about a million proud revelers from all over the globe, Toronto hosts one of the largest festivals in the world, and Embrace has purchased the Prism lineup of parties that host about 17,000-18,000 people over the long weekend of headliner events. Adam and Darren are obviously excited to be working with Pride this year. Darren gushes, “There’s a lot of history here. I was involved with Toronto Pride six or seven years ago and then went off on my own and did my own thing. To be back on board with it…” His dramatic pause says it all. Asked which event elements he’s looking forward to, Darren says, “One of the definite highlights is bringing RKM into the weekend. We brought them in last year and they’ve been here before, but I think what people don’t realize is that they’re going to do decor for the entire weekend. So, for five events, we’re going to have RKM decor, which is as good as it gets. On top of that, we’ve got all the A-list DJs coming, and we’ve got the A-list entertainers performing.”
noiZe spoke further with Adam in a revealing interview about the changing nature of gay events, how the internet affects attendance, and why the future of gay entertainment might just be in Texas.
How has the Babylon concept evolved over the past five years?
The main turning point for us, and the story that will be under-told is the way we changed the model of how you can actually tour an event like this. In the rock world, bands can play five or six shows a week. In our world, you’re getting two, max.
I hired RKM to perform a couple dates during the first year because they were Junior’s guys. They did some party for Junior in New York, his Green Party at the Roxy. They sent me all these pictures. I asked them, “What did you guys do there?” and they said, “We just flew up with a bunch of duffle bags and we did the whole party.” So when we made the transition to have RKM design and take care of the production with us - that really was the turning point. That allows us to be in three cities across the country on a weekend. Memorial Day this year, Friday we’re in Pittsburgh, Saturday we’re in Denver, and Sunday we’re in Minneapolis. It’s just not possible if you have to use a truck.
It’s such an interesting concept to bring a fictional nightclub to life and take it on tour.
It was originally pitched to Showtime as “Queer As Folk - The Tour.” That was in our pitch: this is the only show you can do a tour with and make it relevant and exciting. The whole selling point in the early years was “Experience Babylon” and the back room and all that stuff. Somewhere along the way, especially last year with Queer As Folk being gone, we really moved towards Babylon. We pretty much have a loyal fan base that comes to us every year. Our concept is pretty consistent.
That’s impressive that the concept grew beyond the show itself.
You can’t recreate Queer As Folk, period. And if we ever were going to, it would have been the first year. What we try to do each year is play on people’s imaginations; we want them to make Babylon their own. Over the years, we’ve really worked on pushing Babylon and playing down Queer As Folk. We’re now in our fifth year, and our fourth year with Midori involvement is something as a promoter we’ve been very fortunate about.
Has all that experience affected the way you’re going to approach Prism?
Toronto Pride and Unity have been around for a long time. Last year we partnered with Prism to produce Babylon as the Saturday night main event. We promoted it and it seemed like the right time to take it over. Toronto has a need for something good again. Unity was a very famous and successful weekend and Prism is a reincarnation of it. I decided that this was a good move for us. I wanted a big weekend to have our own. The good thing about this weekend is that it’s around Pride. People can come to Toronto but also get a great Pride festival. You kind of get the best of both worlds. We’re definitely excited about Prism this year. It’s tough, though. The market has drastically changed over the past five to ten years. Half of the venues that we went to [on the Babylon tour] the first year, we’re not going to this year.
Changed in what way exactly?
I think one of the big things that happened maybe two, three years ago was when the internet invasion really started happening. A lot of clubs and a lot of that world lost out a lot.
Because people are meeting each other in a different way now?
Well, if you want to get laid, you don’t need to go to the bar and spend twenty dollars - especially across the country. This is what was echoed to us. The crystal thing is another thing. Aside from that, I just think that the clubs changed. The market is still there, still great money to be made. You just have to be really smart and tactical at how you approach it, the same way the boys are - they’re smart and tactical about when they go out and when they spend their money.
What are your ticket prices for the Babylon Tour?
That’s been one of what I think is our biggest successes. We’ve used the sponsorship dollars to offset the cost. Our prices go from $5 to $65 but usually we sit around $15. It’s not a high ticket at all. They’re getting a full experience.
Black Party was $140 this year.
Crazy! We realized that Babylon is not the Black Party. Black Party may be the party that saves your life or ruins your life. Babylon is what it is - a high-quality, top-notch, greatly produced event which is a good value for your dollar.
What’s it like working with RKM?
I have an enormous amount of respect for what RKM does. I think they’re brilliantly talented, and they’re great to work with. I wish people knew how hard they work. A lot of times people take the décor for granted. We used to have six or seven people setting this thing up, and [now] it’s just Rubio and Kidd. I think we have a really good, exciting concept this year and I think it’s really resonating. They design all of our sponsor stuff and we do it in a way that looks like it’s relevant to being at the event, not like a bunch of banners hanging up in the corner that don’t really make sense.
Why do you think the crowds are getting smaller at these types of gay events?
In the major markets, the gay identity is not just on the gay street. In liberal cities, the gay identity is everywhere. People don’t need to go out to these clubs to hang out with gay people. The one interesting thing about that is that the markets that are still doing very well in the gay world are markets like Texas - Houston or Dallas. You still have to go to the gay street to party. Those clubs are doing big business. But in the markets that you don’t have to, like Chicago, Toronto, San Fran - they are definitely suffering.
It’s a great thing for culture; it’s a bad thing for you and me because we’re in the business of people going out to listen to dance music and have a good time.
