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.”

Posted on November 6, 1999 at 9:15 pm

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