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Post by MKCS on Apr 21, 2018 12:58:24 GMT -8
Hey guys. I'm running on about 6 hours sleep over the past 2 days and my most loyal of crew did a whopping 18 hour day yesterday. I was up at 6 AM arranging equipment etc and at 9 AM we picked up the truck, loaded the ring, loaded it into the venue, set it up and before you know it you're two hours out from show time. For a first show we had a few minor hiccups and one major but nothing that overly hurt the show. Our major hiccup was one performer simply electing not to turn up despite the fact that we had some pretty decent plans for him. One of our wrestlers came up an hour beforehand to me and said "The boys think X isn't coming tonight, you should probably have a plan". LUCKILY we had a manager who was trained to wrestle so we did a situation where he interrupted someone, got squashed by a big guy in about sixty seconds allowing our guy to advance. It wasn't ideal but he was our only option and he did really well, I actually gave him the other guys payday for being a good sport and helping us out in a difficult situation. Now, the crowd. Not embarrassed to say that we pulled 63 people. I was pretty disheartened at first but my crew and experienced wrestlers said that 60 is actually a decent crowd for a new company and that it'll only build. The general consensus is maybe we would've had 20-30 more if another company didn't try and split the audience by running a last minute training show 20 minutes down the road that pulled about 50-60 itself. We've got a return date to the venue in August, I want to run 2 smaller shows in a hall and build to that one and hope maybe we can double the crowd. From the 60 people who turned up every single person took a flyer for our return date in August. We have a show in 13 days 45 minutes down the road and a few people were asking about that and future dates. Fan feedback said that the show was good and they wanted to come back next time. We had one of our local wrestling legends (Wrestled back in the 1970's for the old WCW Australia which was an NWA territory) who said the show was good and gave us his blessing to run his old venue and even agreed to help us advertise at his church and make an appearance. Getting the nod of approval from him really drove home that this is something we can grow. We were packing the ring up until 11:30 PM and got home at 12:00 AM. I woke up at 4:30 AM to get the lighter stuff off the truck and now am waiting to get a couple sets of hands to help move the heavy stuff off the truck so we can drop it off. So, how did I enjoy the experience? It was stressful but I kind of thrive under that stress and pressure. The fans enjoying the show makes me happy and I'm motivated to build this audience up and do better in August. Thank you everyone for the kind words, will keep everyone updated in future. I am not giving up. Edit: Here is a picture from last night events. He is our first champion and will main event all future events.
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Post by Jay Cal on Apr 23, 2018 8:39:10 GMT -8
a wise man once said, I never lose. I either win or I learn. Sounds like you got all the right motivation to keep pushing forward. As always, I wish you luck. If you'd like me to post results on the site, shoot them over to me.
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Post by WWLTD on Apr 24, 2018 19:45:24 GMT -8
Congrats. Curious to see what you're using for your championship belt.
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Post by dkm on Apr 25, 2018 8:03:34 GMT -8
Sounds like you are off to a normal start. Good job.
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Post by MKCS on Apr 25, 2018 19:29:08 GMT -8
Thanks people.
I didn't know 60 was considered normal although the guys around me gave examples. My favourite one was one federation using two internationals and getting 75 at their first show. In comparison to that, 63 isn't so bad.
Jay Cal, you are a gentleman as always. I appreciate the support.
whatwouldloutheszdo - Our belt isn't anything special. With the amount of equipment and running costs to get this going I wasn't going to spend 1000-1500 on a championship belt. I'll upload a photo soon.
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Post by WWLTD on Apr 25, 2018 19:49:26 GMT -8
Thanks people. I didn't know 60 was considered normal although the guys around me gave examples. My favourite one was one federation using two internationals and getting 75 at their first show. In comparison to that, 63 isn't so bad. Jay Cal, you are a gentleman as always. I appreciate the support. whatwouldloutheszdo - Our belt isn't anything special. With the amount of equipment and running costs to get this going I wasn't going to spend 1000-1500 on a championship belt. I'll upload a photo soon. [br We're all friends here..lol Please call me WWLTD. It's an outlook on life and a commentary on a certain company in Connecticut in one. From all the details you've provided I knew you wouldn't waste money on a Parks/Millican or even a Classic Sheilds boot. Never understood why a new company would put the cart before the horse like that. Ego I guess. Just always curious about all things belt related and the different routes new companies go with. The first SICW belts here were wood wall plaques glued to thin backing leather. Don't even think they had snaps.
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Post by dkm on Apr 26, 2018 6:53:52 GMT -8
Thanks people. I didn't know 60 was considered normal although the guys around me gave examples. My favourite one was one federation using two internationals and getting 75 at their first show. In comparison to that, 63 isn't so bad. Jay Cal, you are a gentleman as always. I appreciate the support. whatwouldloutheszdo - Our belt isn't anything special. With the amount of equipment and running costs to get this going I wasn't going to spend 1000-1500 on a championship belt. I'll upload a photo soon. What I've learned from all the promotions that come and go around here is start small and grow, or start big and shrink. I've seen promotions around here that started with 50 and grew to 200 or more but I've also seen promotions start with 500 and shrink to 100. Few last more than 3 years, many only a year with the occasional attempt to come back.
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Post by MKCS on Apr 26, 2018 13:58:55 GMT -8
Yeah, similar circumstances with wrestling here. One promotion located in Western Sydney (Filled with promotions) was drawing 40-50 and using internationals. Just didn't have the patience to rough out the smaller crowds and build up. They're now using huge stars like Ultimo Dragon, Victoria of WWE fame, Ray Fenix, Tenille Dashwood (Emma, WWE) and are pulling just over 100. Must be absolutely losing their ass. Despite drawing just over 60 we did it with locals so I made enough money to cover the talent and the room hire. Only lost my money that I spent on advertising so it kind of seems worth it to spend a few hundred dollars to expose our company to 63 people who should return. WWLTD, here is a photo of our champion holding the belt:
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Post by MKCS on May 3, 2018 19:16:47 GMT -8
We have another show tomorrow night 45 minutes south of our home area. The venue has been going all out on the advertising saying that wrestling is coming to town so lets hope for a decent crowd.
As always will keep you all updated.
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Post by Jay Cal on May 9, 2018 12:01:59 GMT -8
I know that Cagematch.net frequents this site for results. I don't know if that's even a thing for you. But if you'd shoot me results, I'd be happy to post them.
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Post by gmellos on May 30, 2018 13:30:03 GMT -8
We have another show tomorrow night 45 minutes south of our home area. The venue has been going all out on the advertising saying that wrestling is coming to town so lets hope for a decent crowd. As always will keep you all updated. How did the show go?
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Post by MKCS on Jul 2, 2018 15:11:05 GMT -8
We have another show tomorrow night 45 minutes south of our home area. The venue has been going all out on the advertising saying that wrestling is coming to town so lets hope for a decent crowd. As always will keep you all updated. How did the show go? Sorry Mellos, I have forgotten to check this thread lately. The show had it's ups and downs. The crowd was hot and just shy of 100 people which is good for us right now being new and all (Officially about 85-90 people). We did 300+ dollars in merchandise which was a real positive for me since the event was a paid show. We made money off this show which is always very positive. Lots of people asked when we were coming back and a couple of kids started chanting the company name after the show which was great and a promising sign. As a special treat we allowed people to enter the wrestling ring and take photos with our champion which the people (kids especially) really loved. In terms of matches they were really good and the talent worked really hard. We've got a great group of guys and girls with us and we're starting to build a really cool "regular roster" of people who are willing to be patient whilst we try and grow this thing. In terms of the downs we had technical issues with our music. My girlfriend who is in charge of packing all of our stage equipment forgot to pack the AUX Cable which links the laptop to our speakers and being 50-60 minute drive from home we couldn't go back and get it. We ran music from the laptop speaker into the microphone which did the job but obviously wasn't ideal especially when trying to ring announce and play music at the same time. We also had problems with the boards that go under the ring with the two in the middle being slightly too short. This resulted in a minor injury in the main event which resulted in the match ending prematurely but thankfully nothing too bad except a bruise. We've since spent TWO THOUSAND dollars replacing the wood that is too short with structural lumber that won't shift at all. They fit beautifully but we had to take June off to get that sorted. We'll be returning to the area this show was performed at in future. We haven't spoken to the venue about performing there again but there are plenty of halls on offer and being a short drive away and having 85-90 people who know us and like us it only makes sense to take a small show there again in future and see how it goes. Coming up we'll be running in just a few weeks (July 28th) in what will become our regular venue. It's a community centre 200-300 metres from a school and they told me they get something like 400 kids through the doors every week for activities. Where we run the event is a large basketball court/hall which can easily seat 250-300 people comfortably and maybe up to 400 if we really wanted to push things and have people standing. This is actually my local community centre from back when I was living with my mum growing up so I know they get a lot of traffic and I'm hoping that we can have our first triple figure attendance on the 28th. After that we're going back to the club where we did our first event and looking to build on the attendance there also. Pretty much the way I see it is every six weeks we run our regular venue and then do a bigger show at the club which is in the city. The idea is that the fans who come to our regular venue make the trip into the city to see us and we can combine the two crowds and eventually pull big numbers in the city. We also have a spot show on September 9th. Not sure if it's still going ahead (Haven't received the deposit yet) but that'd be a nice profit maker for us since it's only a 3 match show. If we could do some merch sales that'd be great also. --- Just for those who have real interest in how difficult this is I have to admit without a doubt it's one of the most difficult things I've done in my life. I've worked on the radio, been involved in the creative process for films, acted in films, performed live and nothing tops this. From the outside looking in it SEEMS quite easy. Just buy equipment, set up a ring and get some good wrestlers...I never thought like that but I did underestimate how easy it is to get the people into the seats. It's very difficult. For our first event that I've talked about before we got into the local newspaper and on their website, we did 500+ dollars of our own advertising in flyers, social media etc and had all of our talent pumping the event and we pulled around 60. I'm HOPING that this is because we're new and nobody knows us yet but even the club down south with their thousands of dollars of advertising could only get us near the 100 mark. It's really tough so if you know local indies pulling 150-200+ every show definitely tip your hat to them because it's a shit ton of work to get even 1/4th of that. We also struggle because we have no local wrestlers, we get all our guys from Sydney so we don't have a wrestler who can bring thirty of his mates along to watch him wrestle. That's something I notice regularly occurs in the neighbouring promotions. Show days are so stressful that myself and my friend who acts as a second in charge don't even get to eat. If you're not dealing with the ring being unloaded or set up then you're dealing with stage equipment and set up. If you're not dealing with that you're dealing with the talent and clarifying things for them to do. It's INCREDIBLY stressful but I have a great time doing it and audiences seem to enjoy my booking which is good. I'm including a couple of photos from the event in May of arguably our two biggest current stars: (This guy is the Samoan Hercules. Has a great look, a great attitude and is really eager to help this thing grow which is fantastic. Just an all round good dude) (This is our heavyweight champion, similar to Hercules but has more experience. In his career he's worked Chris Hero, Hardcore Holly, Rob Terry, Shelton Benjamin and recently had a match with Orlando Jordan. Again, a really good dude with a good attitude and eager to help it grow)
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Post by Jay Cal on Jul 10, 2018 14:01:38 GMT -8
Proud of the work you're putting in. I might be tip toeing into the foray soon and its good to see what some of you're going through, so I can be prepared for such issues.
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Post by MKCS on Jul 29, 2018 15:11:42 GMT -8
We held another event this past weekend so I thought I'd update those of you who are still interested. This was 15 minutes away from our show venue back in April so it was a good way to gauge how we're growing locally. I'm pleased to say the crowd went up from about 60 in April to approximately 75 this past Saturday night. Still not quite where I want it to be but we had to raise the ticket prices for this show (Building costs more to run) and we still went up so I was very pleased with that. We're running again August 25th and since it's a big show for us I'll be looking to put around $1000.00 worth of advertising into the show so that we can finally hit triple figures (Largest crowd to date was about 80-90 people) In terms of show quality. We definitely did bring a great show to the area. Our champion was in action and had a great match with a 22 year veteran wrestler that we regularly use and the two had a really solid match, we continued a feud that is occurring in a different region and have now taken it on board ourselves (With the other companies permission of course) and are building it. We also had an Australian wrestler who currently competes full time for All Japan Pro Wrestling manage to make the show and work with one of our local guys in a 15 minute match that was match of the night but only just. We had some fans travel as much as three hours to make the event. Plenty of people travelled over an hour to come and watch the show and the locals turned out for it also. Received tons of positive feedback on social media and my merchandise people (Managed by my girlfriend) said that once again people were asking when we're coming back. This time we had a date and flyer for them If I may brag about the talent we assembled. On Saturday nights show the main event was fought between a 10 year veteran and a 22 year veteran, we had a neighbouring states best wrestlers (One a Lance Storm graduate, the others his trainees) come in for a tag team match and they absolutely did not disappoint, we debuted our junior heavyweight division with our star (Hopefully) junior and his opponent receiving a "This is awesome" chant from the locals, we had the All Japan Pro Wrestling guy who actually flew in early from Japan to come and appear for us because he wanted to (I didn't pay his flight, he was already meant to be here), we had a guy fresh off a national tour with another company and our opener featured one of the few former TV wrestlers here in Australia. Despite being 52 years old he still gets the crowd pumping and is a great "gatekeeper" for us. I spoke to our two main event guys on the night looking for feedback and they mentioned we need to upgrade our production which I tend to agree with. As it currently stands we have some cheap lighting, some banners but we really need something that resembles a set. Our venue in August has it's own lights, smoke machines etc so this gives me 2-3 months to get some better production together. The general consensus is that everything else is good except the production. Probably the best positive out of it all is that talking to guys after the show this company is becoming a place where guys want to work. One guy said "I get offers everywhere but I'm only really interested in working here and for my home promotion. It's just a really good vibe here and there isn't any bullshit" which is really great to hear. The All Japan Pro Wrestling competitor spoke to me afterwards saying he had a great time and would love to come back next time he's in the country also so that's a great benefit to have because he is a truly great competitor (As you'd expect from most who work in Japan) Funnily enough, I know I have a "names" reputation on here but apparently fans asked my second in charge when we were bringing a former WWE guy in. He said "Maybe next year" which I wasn't too happy with. As it stands I don't think we actually need a "name" to come in for a shot and get our champion over or whatever. I think our locals are doing that just fine and I don't think drawing a big crowd with a "name talent" really shows how well you as a company draws. We might do it for something special at some point but right now I'm really adamantly against it. Kind of ironic if you think back to my posts here. I usually upload photos on here but this time one of the fans in the crowd actually took video and was so excited about the event that he made a little highlights package that I uploaded on YouTube to show the workers but I can show you guys also. --- This post is getting really long but let me just give you some notes on what you're seeing in the video: 0:00 - 1:00 - This is our top junior heavyweight competitor he's only 30 but has been wrestling for ten years all over the east coast of Australia. The girl with him? I discovered her and this is her first ever professional wrestling event that she had ever been to. I took a big risk on her only having time to coach her for less than 10 minutes on what to do and how to do it. I would suggest that the wrestler she was valet for also took time to coach her but she was kind of a natural. I gave her some feedback but she loved it and is excited to come back and learn more. Great. She is MARKETABLE. Lots of the boys commenting that she's a good find because she's quite attractive but get this. The girl can breath fire, eat fire, blow fire, crack whips, she's an aerialist, trains some kind of martial art and now wants to try wrestling. Super talented and really cool. I offered her a private room just to change in since she was the only girl and she said she'd change with the guys because she's an entertainer and "That's what entertainers do". That got her some instant respect with the boys. 1:00 - 1:16 - This was the All Japan Pro Wrestling Vs All-Star Wrestling (My company) challenge. The fan didn't use any footage from the actual match but it was match of the night in my opinion and I was really proud of our local guy for sticking in there and hanging with a guy who is a full time professional in Japan and is much more experienced than him. All Japan Pro Wrestling guy looked after him and helped him along the way I'm sure but what a phenomenal match those two guys had. 1:16 - 2:52 - This is the interstate tag match I was talking about. Interesting situation with these guys is they live in a state that has one wrestling company which to be kind is quite average. The two younger guys work matches there just so they have a place to work but their trainer and the larger guy in the match refuse to work there due to the quality being poor. They wrestle in Sydney but we're 2 hours south of Sydney so we're the closest company to them geographically so they come up here, split a hotel three (Sometimes four) ways and just party after the shows. Four really good guys who are just really respectful and fun to be around and talented also. 2:52 - 3:18 - The fan in question didn't show much of the action but I guess it was your normal solid heavyweight bout. Interesting to note is that at one stage the music cuts out in the entrance. I have quite a powerful voice so what happened is that during his ring announcement I literally announced him so loud that the machine couldn't handle it and turned off causing the guy I was sitting with to quickly have to turn the machine on and play the music again. We did this all in about a 5 second period so it was a fast working team but I think it's an interesting note that my voice managed to beat a machine. Please feel free to give feedback on what you guys think.
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Post by gmellos on Aug 6, 2018 11:35:37 GMT -8
Good for you PJ! I hope this is a slow but steady build into the #1 Aussie Promotion!
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