Kids with the million-dollar smiles

Family fun brings in the kind of money Uncle Scrooge could only dream of

The other day thousands of mothers and fathers across Beijing let their children forget about dreaded violin and calligraphy lessons for a week so they could keep a Saturday-morning appointment with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

Feld Entertainment, producer of the performance series Disney on Ice, has been busy these past few years cultivating Chinese parents' enthusiasm for Broadway-style shows. The fruit of that work is now falling prodigiously into the harvesting buckets, and the company is looking at how to maximize its returns.

"When a dad brings his little girl to see the Disney show he is the hero to his child," says Matt Whitney, general manager of Greater China at Feld Entertainment.

The rollicking fun of the show is the perfect payback for parents who have brought their children along.

The frenzy of that Saturday's Mickey and Minnie show peaked with a dragon dance and the appearance of the Chinese legendary female hero Mulan, a Disney character, on the rink.

When Ma Rui, father of a four-year-old girl, read about the Mickey and Minnie show in Beijing Kids Magazine he immediately picked up the phone and booked tickets.

"She loves Disney and, amazingly, she knows all the Disney stories," says Ma, pointing to his girl, who jumped up and down throughout the show.

This was the eighth time that Disney on Ice, Disney's ice-skating tour, has come to China. Apart from the show that is continuing at Workers' Stadium in Beijing, another 14 performances were planned for Shanghai and Guangzhou. Each performance was to be given at a venue with seating for 6,000. The price of tickets ranges from 80 yuan ($12.6, 9.2 euros) to 380 yuan.

The Beijing Trade Association says that there were 19,095 live performances in Beijing last year, bringing in more than 1.1 billion yuan in revenue. There were 16,397 live performances the previous year.

Whitney says Feld Entertainment plans to launch local shows produced by Chinese staff and technicians, with sets made in China, thus reducing the outlay on transport.

At present the equipment and materials needed to put the ice rink in place needs to be shipped to China in 13 sea containers, Whitney says. Cutting or eliminating those costs would not only immediately reduce the bottom line, but eventually leave the company with the type of mile-wide smile its shows are supposed to put on the faces of children.

"The promoter can reduce the price of tickets and then we can get more people (coming) to see the show. More audiences, more future profits."

Feld Entertainment has noble roots in saving, or at least reinventing, the dying circus industry in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. One of the companies that Feld Entertainment's founders bought to do this, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, used to famously boast that it was "The Greatest Show on Earth". Feld Entertainment is just as proud, boasting of having laid on entertainment across six continents and in 70 countries since 1967 and of employing more than 3,000 people who "fill their days finding new ways to thrill, dazzle and delight audiences".

Whitney, channeling the company spirit, displays enthusiasm worthy of the great showman P. T. Barnum. "What's cool ... is we have 20 different shows, which are three circus shows, 10 ice shows, five live or stage shows, and two motor shows which we hope to bring to China in 2013."

Feld Entertainment first came to China in 1995 with Beauty and Beast, one of the Disney on Ice series. From 1995 to 2005 the company explored the Chinese market by going to various cities with just 20 or 30 performances a year.

In 2006 it changed tack and started expanding when the first Disney live show Winnie the Pooh came to China. Feld Entertainment had an average of 100 performances here a year from 2006 to 2008, and the number rose to 167 in 2009, and 274 last year by taking in smaller cities.

Asked about Feld Entertainment's revenue, Whitney declined to give any figures, channeling the company's notorious secrecy. (The company's CEO, Kenneth Feld, once quoted his father as saying, "The good Lord never meant for the circus to be owned by a big company.")

Nevertheless, Whitney says that growth was considerable and promising. "During the 10 years of market exploration, we were learning about China. During the five years of market expansion we were trying to get our entertainment everywhere."

Now it has another strategy: putting on the brake a little after its years of dramatic development to strengthen its penetration in the market.

"Market expansion is far from enough," Whitney says. "I want really well and consistently attended engagement, well-marketed performances and professional promoters, or production houses, that are able to bring in and host the international shows."

Since the hallmark of the company's product is "family entertainment", its ambition, Whitney says, is first to establish "consistency", which another business person might call repeat business.

"Consistency means the people who are here today need to think ... 'You know what? I'm coming back next year. And next year I want Disney On Ice to be here at the same time, in the same place and with the same people."

That is why Whitney's strategy is to focus on finding partners who are not just interested in how much money they made last week, but who are willing to build the brand for the long term, to think about long-term sponsors, long-term promoters, and long-term venue relationships and ticket relationships.

Like every foreign entertainment company performing in China, Feld Entertainment also has to work closely with its Chinese promoters. The company has different production houses in different cities and makes different contracts with them, but the usual deal is that Feld Entertainment is paid a specific amount for each performance, and it is the Chinese companies that reap the profits - or saddle the losses.

Whitney says the money that Chinese production houses pay do not even cover their costs sometimes. "We are here building the brand and the audience, and partnering with the promoters. The growth of number engagement will definitely improve our revenue, but we actually hope most of the financial growth goes to our promoter."

Some of the production houses work mainly on seeking sponsorship, but Whitney says he prefers them to focus on marketing.

"If you have a sponsor who buys the show's tickets and gives them to others (free), then you have never really developed the market. But if most of the people come and buy the tickets themselves ... that means their desire and willingness to see it."