Keeping A.C. Entertained / Frank Gelb is a master at Bringing Acts to the Resort
April 16, 2006 - Atlantic City, NJ
Author: Vincent Jackson
Position: Staff Writer - Press of Atlantic City
Email: VJackson@pressofac.com
Phone: (609) 272-7202
Edition: All
Section: Leisure
Page: E1
Dateline: Atlantic City
Andrea Bocelli performs with The Boston Pops 8 p.m. June 17 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Tickets $75, $125, $195, $275.
Frank Gelb spent a recent Thursday evening walking through Boardwalk Hall - even though the Andrea Bocelli/Boston Pops concert he's promoting is still more than two months away.
Gelb will not wait until the last minute to work out details for the show. He's already worrying about how the stage will look, how to make sure that carpeting covers the arena's floor and where Bocelli will stay and eat when he's in the city.
It's that attention to detail that has helped the 30-year Ventnor resident bring more shows to the Hall than probably anybody else in Atlantic City history - more than 100 events in 33 years. At age 67, Gelb could consider retiring from the promotion game, but he plans to recommit himself to bringing more entertainment to the city.
"We are in a new era of Atlantic City. We have the greatest attraction in the world in the Boardwalk. There is excitement in the air," Gelb said. "I'm very passionate about Atlantic City. ... I live here, shop here and eat here."
All the recent development in the city - including The Walk, The Quarter, the almost-completed Pier at Caesars, proposed hotel towers at Borgata, Harrah's and the Taj, and proposed Boardwalk renovations - fuels Gelb's re-dedication to the city.
After the Bocelli show, he doesn't rule out bringing in an ice show to Boardwalk Hall's 13,800-seat arena and arranging for a couple of acts that his son works with - one classical, the other pop - to perform in the hall's 3,200-capacity Adrian Phillips Ballroom.
Even though the Borgata opened in the summer 2003, Gelb said he really didn't feel a change in the city until last year with the addition of beach bars and the opening of the House of Blues Atlantic City joining all the other recent developments.
Gelb's involvement with the city predates the casinos. He did his first live event, a boxing program, in March 1973. The Hall, then known as Convention Hall, went through a 10-year period before that when no live boxing took place. Gelb said he spent nine months a year making money working in his father's retail furniture business in Philadelphia and Norristown, Pa., in order to pay up front for three months of summer shows here.
In Gelb's early days, he presented a water follies show, roller derby, the Emmett Kelly Circus, wrestling, boxing and other attractions - all before the advent of gambling in 1978 when the first casino, Resorts International, opened.
"I had relationships with the owners of the old, decaying hotels. All these owners were very, very helpful," said Gelb, who added he did an event in the city every Monday and Thursday for three years. "We did a lot of closed-circuit fights, before pay-per-view."
Now defunct places such as Angelo's Barbershop on North Carolina Avenue and Ike's Corner on Kentucky Avenue and still-existing Piggy's Place sold tickets for Gelb's events in the 1970s. At 3 p.m. on the day of the show, he ran around and collected money from tickets sold.
"It was a tough, tough way to do it," said Gelb about a time before Ticketmaster dominated the market for live event ticket sales.
Gelb brought in two string bands from Philadelphia, which turned into the first indoor Mummers' Spectacular at the hall for his summer "Boardwalk Showcase." He did a weekly TV variety show called "Atlantic City Alive" at Resorts, followed by a "Sports Talk" TV show, which taped at Harrah's.
At least twice in the classical music field, Gelb defied the odds.
Luciano Pavarotti performed a program of arias in a concert format for the first time in October 1983 in an 8,000-seat tent theater adjacent to Resorts, which Gelb helped present. No one thought the Hall could handle a classical music concert in its pre-renovation days, but Gelb worked to make it a successful engagement when Pavarotti sang in March 1985 for the first time there.
With Gelb's background with the Hall and connections to Bocelli, Greg Tesone, the Hall's assistant general manager, figured contacting Gelb to bring one of the first concerts to the renovated hall in 2001 made sense.
"With his history, it made perfect sense. We had to sell the building to agents and promoters.
We didn't have to do a sales pitch on him," said Tesone, who added the biggest concern he faced with the December 2001 Bocelli show was whether the rain on the roof could be heard inside the hall. "At the end of the night, I was thrilled nobody complained about the rain."
Gelb last promoted a show here when he brought Bocelli back for a concert in November 2003 at the Taj Mahal. He believes the changes made in the city in a little more than two years and still to come are enough to justify intensify his efforts to do more shows here.
"Now is the future. You feel it. I go shopping on The Walk. It's not just the casinos. There is a magical air, and it's fabulous," Gelb said.
Copyright, 2006, South Jersey Publishing Company t/a The Press of Atlantic City Record Number: 0604160110