Vol. 5, No. 11, November 2008
RSS Feeds
The Show Must Go On
Through career changes, challenges, and occasional heartache, Peter Aaronson has never missed a cue.
Peter Aaronson marched to his own drummer—literally. The New York native, who perfected his craft at Caesars, Resorts and Trump Taj Mahal, is now executive director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic. In this role, all parts of Aaronson’s life have merged: performing, producing, booking, negotiating and fundraising.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to marry my backgrounds,” says Aaronson, who started as a trumpet player in New York and mastered several administrative roles in Atlantic City before joining the Philharmonic. As the third largest arts organization in Nevada, the orchestra plays to sold-out crowds and will move into a $475 million facility in 2011.
For Aaronson, it’s a long way from gaming. Between 1986 and 1991, he experienced the energy of Atlantic City’s heyday and the start of its recession-driven stagnation. He began as an outside production manager for the Boardwalk Electric Light and Music show at Caesars. The show, produced by Disney legend Robert Jani, was a Boardwalk parade on stage, depicting life at the Jersey Shore in the 1920s and 1930s. Aaronson hired the performers and contracted with Caesars to stage the show in its venue. He later discovered the other side of the coin, in casino administration.
“The Caesars show ran six months and as it was shutting down, there was an opening at the Superstar Theater in Resorts,” Aaronson says. “The job involved contracting headliner talent and helping book the performers. The primary day-to-day job was operating the theater and adhering to budgets put together by the entertainment VP.”
Aaronson scuttled a simultaneous conducting job in New York to concentrate on Atlantic City. Moving to the Taj Mahal in 1990, he opened the Mark G. Etess Arena with an Elton John concert.
It was an exciting time, and a poignant one. The arena was named for beloved Taj Mahal President Mark Etess, whom Aaronson considered a mentor. Etess had died the year before, along with two other Trump executives, when their helicopter, en route from New York to Atlantic City, crashed near the Garden State Parkway.
The Elton John concert “was the first big public event for the Etess Arena, and everybody rallied around,” Aaronson recalls. “The shows were terrific. They were a rousing success and made the arena successful right out of the box.”
Aaronson served as entertainment manager there for 10 months.
“It was quite an interesting time in Atlantic City,” he says. “It was a legendary vacation getaway, but had started to struggle with all the business expansion coming in.
“This was my initial experience as resident production manager of a hotel casino. People from that time became my friends—Don Rickles, Dom DeLuise, Franki Valli, Paul Anka—the giants. It was interesting to speak to them on a different level. Dom DeLuise had a love of Italian opera. Many hours after the show, I would play from opera vocal scores. I would sing the ladies, he would sing the men—all to an empty theater. It was absolutely wonderful.”
Aaronson later worked for Crystal Palace in Nassau, Universal Studios, Norwegian Cruise Lines and Las Vegas casinos. Then the Philharmonic beckoned.
“The biggest change over the years was that entertainment in general could no longer be accepted as a loss leader,” he says. “In the beginning, the events themselves did not have to earn a profit, because the gaming tables and the hotel rooms would benefit.
“It became a hallmark of the corporate world that every department had to turn a profit. When that changed, we were forced to fine-tune our marketing skills, look at all the details.”
The experience sharpened him, and continues to serve him today. Driven by music and seasoned by gaming, the former AC exec can hold any kind of note, musical or financial. His life has become a never-ending show.
Where Are They Now? RSS 2.0 Feed
Where Are They Now? Podcast Feed
