Big Hair-y Deals - 1960s musical 'Hair' to tour, sponsored by several corporations

It is a landmark musical about free-loving, war-protesting, dope-smoking radicals, thumbing their noses at convention and The Man by stripping naked, this in front of a live audience. Hair, when it was first performed 30 years ago, was an artistic lightning rod of all things hippie, anti-establishment and counter culture. And yet, an upcoming festival, to celebrate the play's anniversary and usher in the millennium, is looking for support from people once considered to be the ultimate squares: corporate America.

Organizers of Hair, The Festival have begun initial rounds of negotiations with blue-chip companies in pursuit of $15 million worth of sponsorships for a 27-city tour, kicking off next spring, and sure to ride high on the the nation's billowing wave of retromania.

"Hair is anticommercial by nature," said Paul Leighton, co-chair of Tribe, a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based management and venture capital firm spearheading the tour. "But we can't deny that commercialism has been very good to us in many ways."

Leighton and Michael Butler, the original producer of the musical on Broadway and prime mover for the revival, envision links with automakers, financial services, computer companies, upscale restaurants and beauty products, particularly brands with nostalgia-heavy advertising or environmentally-friendly messages that would fit with the festival's tone. (Think VW, Gardenburger, Apple, Ben & Jerry's, The Body Shop). The goal is between six and 10 national sponsors, with title sponsorships possible; Tribe likely will forge local ties as well. Some sponsor deals could be inked within the next two months, and marketing and promotional spending from partners is expected to top $30 million.

Tribe itself intends to spend upwards of $10 million to market the roving events, and is negotiating with licensees for apparel and other products to hit specialty retail shelves in advance of the tour.

Targeted at baby boomers and their hipster kids, the fest aims to be a retro-Lollapalooza-type entertainment destination, a "be-in" as organizers are calling it, where consumers will spend at least four or five hours browsing and buying. "For it to work, we have to make this an experience," Leighton said. "These kinds of elements have existed before, but not packaged in the same event.' (And, in fact, Hair has been performed consistently over the last three decades, through licensing with the original creators. But those productions will cease when the festivals roll into a market, with the exception of a college or other student performance.)

Along with staging the musical in a portable 1,500-seat theater, the fest intends to be a "traveling performing arts center village" featuring full-service restaurants, licensed merchandise booths complete with beads, tie-dye, lava lamps and headbands, Haight Ashbury and Greenwich Village themed areas, a scale model of the Brooklyn Bridge, multi-media presentations and street markets. Also included will be live performances by musicians and comedians, re-enactments of famous civil rights speeches, contemporary political rallies, and a fully-operational radio station pumping '60s tunes through the village, acting as the events' emcee.

The five acre-festival, which will require 28 tractor-trailers to shuttle it around the country, will settle in popular public gathering spots such as New York's Central Park or L.A.'s Santa Monica Pier.

The tour is expected to kick off in San Francisco next April and "follow the sun" around the country, hitting Portland, Seattle, Denver, St. Louis, Dallas, Chicago, Boston and Washington. It is scheduled to be in Los Angeles for the millennium. The cast will be made up of unknowns, but there will be a guest star performer in each city, organizers say.

Sponsors would have on-site exposure for their brands and could sell their products and services there. A soda sponsor could corner pouring rights, for example, and use the association as a beachhead for a full-scale retail promotion. Organizers said they will encourage brands to dust off their '60s ad images, when possible, to use at the sites and in marketing campaigns. They also would have access to the musical's performers for advertising and appearances. "We want to do everything we can to help them," Butler said of sponsor brands.

Organizers aim to get exposure for the events in venues ranging from Musicland and Starbucks to supermarkets and consumer electronics stores.

Additionally, talks have started about re-releasing the 1979 film version of Hair and creating a behind-the-scenes TV special. Three separate record projects, re-releases and new product, are in the works, underscoring the continuing interest and rabid fan base of the property, Butler said.

"People have a real connection with the show," Butler said, "and this is our way of making it current and trying to bring it to an even wider audience."

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