An Interview With Jon Regan of Clubvibes.com

Jon Regan has been a fixture of the Boston night club promotions business since the early days of punk rock at the Channel. Today he works with ClubVibes.com, a giant in the world of online nightlife community and promotion. During a recent meeting with Jon, we were able to sit down and ask him 20 questions about his success, and what part printing played in Jon’s business.

48HourPrint.com: How long have you been a club promoter?
Jon Regan: "Wow, I don’t know I guess about 17 years."

48HourPrint.com: Really, seventeen years, how old were you when you first started promoting?
Jon Regan: "I was 17 years old when I booked my first show back at a club called The Channel in Boston."

48HourPrint.com: So, what did you do to promote your events back then?
Jon Regan: "The whole dog and pony show, Flyers, Word of Mouth. I would usually print up 250 to 500 flyers, and I would go to almost every show in town leading up to the date of my show, and hand out flyers. They call it one to one marketing now, but back then I just wanted to make sure I spent a moment with whoever I was giving the flyer too, make them feel wanted at the show. There were no smoke and mirrors; I really needed every person I connected with to show up, back then it felt like a matter of life and death."

48HourPrint.com: Have you ever done an event without using flyers?
Jon Regan: "Not really, though in recent years I have produced some events for on-line clients with a dedicated e-mail list of people they wanted to their event. I used e-mail marketing to inform them of the event, and requested an RSVP to create the list, but even then, we printed some ticket/invitations that really acted just as flyers, you know a little reminder that we were having a party."

48HourPrint.com: How many events do you now produce or execute throughout the year?
Jon Regan: "Let’s see I do about 4 or 5 a week, and a few big one off events, I would have to say 60 in a year."

48HourPrint.com: That’s a lot of events, who are some of the musicians you have had at some of your events.?
Jon Regan: "Wow the list goes on and on, everyone from Tribe Called Quest, to The Cromags."

48HourPrint.com: What was you biggest event?
Jon Regan: "I think the biggest for me personally was the first time I booked the act Slap Shot at the channel."

48HourPrint.com: How did you promote that show?
Jon Regan: "Back in my early days of club promotion, word of mouth combined with plenty of flyers and posters was the only way to promote an event. I would go to just about every show leading up to the event, and stand out front and try to hand a flyer to everyone who came out the main entrance of the venue after the show. Other than that, I would try to go around to all the local non-chain music stores and hang posters advertising the show."

48HourPrint.com: How many people were you able to get to show at the event using only flyers and posters?
Jon Regan: "It has been a while but I think we sold the show out at approximately 2000 tickets sold."

48HourPrint.com: Well I have noticed you have truly come a long way from the early days of Boston Punk Rock shows, quickly what have you been up to these days?
Jon Regan: "In addition to producing events for a host of clients like Diesel, and some video game companies, I also founded and manage the Futureclassic.net website which is an on-line portal for most of my projects, like the re-release of Down Hill Motion a 70’s skateboard film on DVD, and some of the mix Cd’s I help promote. I am also managing http://www.clubvibes.com for the Boston area, which is a huge online community designed to help club owners managers and promoters have a dialogue directly with their consumer, we host Clubvibes member parties in several cities nationwide."

48HourPrint.com: When did you start managing the Clubvibes site?
Jon Regan: "I took over local promotions for Clubvibes just back in February 2004."

48HourPrint.com: What attracted you to working with this site given that you had recently launched your own website?
Jon Regan: "The answer is simple, traffic! Clubvibes is a huge on-line community of individuals, who go out often, and I produce events often, it appeared to be a perfect match."

48HourPrint.com: How big is the Clubvibes site?
Jon Regan: "Well we have 10,000 members in Boston, 120,000 members Nationwide, we are in 12 markets."

48HourPrint.com: Do you do any print marketing for Clubvibes?
Jon Regan: "Oh yeah, we do a lot of business cards for placement on windshields at Clubvibes member events, and our logo ends up on a ton of other Clubvibes member events."

48HourPrint.com: Just a rough estimate of course, how many total flyers, business cards, posters do you think you print monthly?
Jon Regan: "Wow, I would say we do about 20,000 in Boston, and I couldn’t even imagine nationally how many flyers, and everything are made with the Clubvibes logo on them."

48HourPrint.com: What methods do feel you have been most successful using to distribute this large quantity of promotional materials?
Jon Regan: "We use a variety of methods. Everything from Street Teams, Person to Person, windshield placement at hot shows, placement at music stores, fashion retail outlets and stores, to even dropping flyers at select malls, basically if young club going people are there we want to be there."

48HourPrint.com: What lessons have you learned, or factors to consider about the actual production of flyers for event and club promotion?
Jon Regan: "I think the number one think I am constantly reminding my people when they are making flyers, is to consider shipping cost, and time. Other important factors to consider are Quality I prefer UV coated rather than a laminate, or matte, they just last longer. Details that are important, every flyer should contain the 5 W’s, who, what, where, why and when and never forget to check for typos, and always get a proof."

48HourPrint.com: Well I think that about covers it, thanks for your time.