Video Games Live

Your flyers were everywhere. I would have been hard-pressed to avoid them if I tried, heh. They were put on every seat before at least one of the keynotes, in piles on a lot of tables, in the tote bags they gave us, and probably a few others places I'm forgetting. I tried making a paper airplane out of one, but sadly it didn't work out too well.

Originally Posted by lord-of-shadow

Your flyers were everywhere. I would have been hard-pressed to avoid them if I tried, heh. They were put on every seat before at least one of the keynotes, in piles on a lot of tables, in the tote bags they gave us, and probably a few others places I'm forgetting. I tried making a paper airplane out of one, but sadly it didn't work out too well.

Hehehehehe... well, good to know the marketing train is chugging along!

Hope to meet ya in Montreal!

Any other suggestions on where we should be getting the word out in Montreal? We're hitting all the game stores and Future Shop is our partners and as I'm sure you're aware... they are HUGE (the Best Buy of Canada!) I'm getting the word out to all my friends at UbiSoft Montreal and the promoter will be doing local TV, radio, online and newspaper advertising. The first show is almost sold out just from mailing lists so they are talking about adding a second show the night before.

Any suggestions?


Tommy

Future Shop is indeed the biggest electronic store in Québec. There's also Best Buy and EBGames on a smaller scale. As for advertising, make sure that your promoter also take advantage of public transport, especially the subway. That's where I come in contact with a large part of my daily dose of overwhelming publicity.

Aside these, I don't really know how you could make the ticket sales increase further, yet since you mentioned they are already selling well, that's no real problem. I mentioned the coming of VGL to Montréal on my website, but while I live in the area, most people visiting the site come from other parts of the world. Might still inform a few more people though.

Originally Posted by Rimo

make sure that your promoter also take advantage of public transport, especially the subway. That's where I come in contact with a large part of my daily dose of overwhelming publicity.

That's an absolutely fantastic idea! I'll pass it along to the promoter immediately! Thanks for the info.

If you see an ad in the subway take a pic for me (and know that the reason it's there is because of you!)



Tommy

I'm two hours south of Montreal, at Champlain College in Burlington, so... close enough to easily get there, but too far to really be familiar with it's ins and outs.

I could probably get you connected to Champlain's Burlington campus though, if you were interested. Nothing but game design and art students there, so they'd be interested. Not too many people there though, so it might not be worth your time.

Mr. Tallarico, you may have already addressed this elsewhere, but in an interview you gave to enthusiast site n-sider (apparently after a VGL event?), you answered as follows to a question:

Quote:

Max: What was the first CD-ROM game you did the music for?

Tommy: That was the Terminator, on the Sega CD. And that was actually the very first video game to ever use a live guitar, in… 1993.

Did you ever clarify exactly what you meant by that final statement?

Originally Posted by Dais

Mr. Tallarico, you may have already addressed this elsewhere, but in an interview you gave to enthusiast site n-sider (apparently after a VGL event?), you answered as follows to a question:



Did you ever clarify exactly what you meant by that final statement?

Not sure exactly what you're asking. Could you please clarify.

In regards to my statement, to my knowledge The Terminator on the Sega-CD was the very first video game to ever record a live guitar (not midi samples). It came out in 1993. It was also the first game to ever use 3-D audio (Q-Sound). If you are aware of another game that did this before 1993 please let me know.

Thanks,


Tommy

Originally Posted by Dais

Mr. Tallarico, you may have already addressed this elsewhere, but in an interview you gave to enthusiast site n-sider (apparently after a VGL event?), you answered as follows to a question:

Did you ever clarify exactly what you meant by that final statement?

Wow, somebody outside of the immediate community actually read the interview I conducted. You just made my day, Dais.

Originally Posted by José

It's been a while since I've run through this thread, and I thought to myself that I don't recall giving thanks for everything that went on at the DC shows during our OCReMix meetup that weekend. So...
Thanks to you guys for the great performance and the great musicians we got to meet, thanks to Tommy and Mike for graciously providing us with a little backstage and behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, and personal thanks from me to you, Tommy, for putting up with all my crap about having to wait so long for a New York show. The page says, "Coming Soon..." I can't wait. I'm wanna organize a big, honking OCR meetup soon as we get a definite date!

Yo Jose....

As promised...

VGL Hits NYC!

Video Games Live | www.videogameslive.com

Tommy

Originally Posted by lord-of-shadow

Wow, somebody outside of the immediate community actually read the interview I conducted. You just made my day, Dais.

You did a great job too! Glad to hear you had so much fun.

For anyone interested, here is the review and interview: N-Sider.com: Video Games Live

The highlight for me was the following paragraph:

"And thus ended the best show I have ever seen. I’ve been to my fair share of concerts and plays, and everything in between, but none can even begin to compare to the fantastic experience that was Video Games Live. If you only visit one live performance in your lifetime, make it this one, because it is, to put it simply, a damn good show. Tallarico, I salute you: your show has made yet another life-long fan, and I can’t wait to see it again. And if any of you get a chance to do the same… You know what to do."


It's one of the quotes we use in our sales sheets to promoters.




Tommy

Just picked up two tickets for the montreal show. I can't wait. All I can say is, have a good set ready, and its about time

Hey, Tommy!

Just this morning, I bought tickets for the Edmonton show in February with 3 of my friends. Needless to say, we're pretty excited.

Anyway, I have a question for you: What are the chances of hearing a piece from Chrono Cross during the Edmonton concert? Are you guys able to play a full-fledged arrangement from the game at all, or is it piano-only?

Chrono Cross was actually the first soundtrack that got me interested in gaming music, so it's kind of special for me. When I went to VGL.com and saw that the game was added to your playlist, I nearly had a heart attack. I don't want to say that hearing it performed live would be like fulfilling a lifelong dream or anything, but it would definitely be something to the same effect.

Anyway, congratulations on all of your recent success, and I can't wait to see the show again in February!

-Ron

Hi Ron!,

We're just putting the set-lists together for all of our Jan., Feb. & March shows. I'll make sure we put the Chrono Cross segment in there for you. We currently only have a unique piano arrangement that the Video Game Pianist Martin Leung put together. Eventually we'll do an orchestrated version as well... but we're currently working on the Metroid arrangement and probably won't get a Chrono Cross one done by Feb.

Thanks! Can't wait for you to see the show!!


Tommy

Don't live in Vegas anymore, otherwise I'd have a show to look forward to.

I'll have to keep an eye on that Boise spot. Though honestly, I don't see much compensation for playing in Idaho.

Originally Posted by Zephyrin

Don't live in Vegas anymore, otherwise I'd have a show to look forward to.

I'll have to keep an eye on that Boise spot. Though honestly, I don't see much compensation for playing in Idaho.

Hi Zephyrin,

For us, it's not about the compensation, it's about bringing game music to the mainstream masses. Our number one goal for doing this was to show the world how significant, cultural and artistic video games have become to our culture. And not just the music... but the entire industry. This is one of the reasons why we care a lot about the visuals, presentation and fun factor in the show. By doing this we're reaching a wider variety of non-gamers.

Where do you live exactly? We're looking into a lot of places that aren't listed on our site. Let me know what the biggest city around you is and I'll let ya know if we're planning anything.

thanks,


Tommy

Great performance at the Spike TV VGAs. The classic games medley was very well done.
It was a shame they only featured Video Games Live once during the actual show, besides the segues to commercials.

Originally Posted by Tommy Tallarico

Hi Zephyrin,

For us, it's not about the compensation, it's about bringing game music to the mainstream masses. Our number one goal for doing this was to show the world how significant, cultural and artistic video games have become to our culture. And not just the music... but the entire industry. This is one of the reasons why we care a lot about the visuals, presentation and fun factor in the show. By doing this we're reaching a wider variety of non-gamers.

Where do you live exactly? We're looking into a lot of places that aren't listed on our site. Let me know what the biggest city around you is and I'll let ya know if we're planning anything.

thanks,


Tommy

You can say that, but without the funding, there's not going to be a show. Of course, I have no idea what money is like in this kind of business/situation, but yeah.
I'm just saying, bands like Tool which sell out in 10 minutes in Vegas, don't even sell out here. Rough comparison, but still.

I live in Nampa, Idaho. That'd be about 25-30 minutes West of Boise, ID.

Someone from GFF showed me this, and I'll be more than likely attending your February show in Toronto . This might be a bit late, but were you guys considering putting the Gears of War theme in there somewhere ( Gears of War: Train Ride To Hell )? For some reason I was a bit surprised not to see it on the list of games you cover on the website.

Ah, for your February show in Toronto, could you please add in the Rainbow Six theme for one of the songs you'll be playing? That'd be great!!!
I would suggest playing the StarCraft 2 theme as well, it seems like the Greater Toronto Area is filled with A LOT of Starcraft fans (myself included), so that'd probably go over well haha.

PS: Back when you gave Smash Bros a low score a long time ago on Electric Playground, my hardcore SB friends were outraged, got some very amusing reactions from them, thanks for that haha .