Press

April 2006

Overland Wins Two Prestigious Awards

Best Staging/Set Design and Best Content/Program

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December 2000

Rock’s Million Dollar Bash

“Anyone can be bought; anyone is available for a price,” Jonathan Scharer says flatly. He ought to know. His Overland Entertainment Company has booked everyone from Beck to Bob Dylan for private parties and corporate gigs. Although Scharer will not discuss specific fees, he characterizes prices as “outrageous” — and rising. Just two years ago, the Eagles received a reported $500,000 to play the financial firm Nomura Asset Capital Corp.; now superstars can command more than $1 million for about an hour’s work.

November 6, 1999
They Rock Hard for the Money

On corporate dates 20 years ago, you booked Don Rickles or maybe the Everly Brothers. “That’s changed dramatically. The counterculture element of rock has disappeared into the woodwork.” And good riddance, said Jonathan Scharer, president of the Overland Entertainment Company, a New York promotion firm that deals primarily in private parties. When he first formed the company, Scharer said, performers who agreed to play private parties were not sure what kind of commitment they would get from the producers. “They were playing in airplane hangers and hotel ballrooms. They were singing on hotel risers. We got sophisticated.”

Scharer said the private party niche was unexplored territory when he started. “I identified a need in the corporate sector for rock ’n roll. Corporate executives were getting younger and younger. They wanted to boogie.”