THE FEMALE PHYSIQUE WEBZINE GALLERY
THE OLYMPIA WEEKEND 2005
Orleans Hotel/Convention Center, Las Vegas
October 14-15
back
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
 |
The lighting at the finals
wasn't bad, just too dim. However, the light behind the competitors
was disproportionately bright and the illumination was uneven across the width of the stage. |
OVERVIEW
To begin with, I am an avid supporter of female physique
competition and have both a professional and emotional investment in the
future of the IFBB and the Olympia. For
the women to be successful, the federation and the Olympia organizers have
to be successful. So I take
no pleasure in having to write bad reviews of the Olympia weekend or the
conduct of the Ms. Olympia, Olympia Fitness or Olympia Figure events. I would like nothing better than to say
that the weekend was a total success and that everyone was happy with the
skill of the organizers and the quality of the production.
Unfortunately, I can't do that. The Olympia Weekend was not a disaster. But way too much went wrong and there
were too many mistakes made in both planning and execution to overlook. Hopefully, pointing out some of these
will make for a much better Olympia in 2006.
COMPETITION
REPORTS
|
THE GOOD
On the plus side, many of us had been told that the Orleans
Hotel and Casino, which replaced the Mandalay Bay this year, was a "dump." This was not the case. The Orleans is a perfectly acceptable
hotel, it is less expensive than the Mandalay Bay, there is more variety
of more affordable food and the Orleans Arena is a first-rate competition
venue.
There was some complaint that holding the Expo at the Convention
Center, which is at least (if you are lucky) 20 minutes away, was inconvenient
compared to the Mandalay Bay, which has its own space in which to hold an
Expo. However, while going from
the hotel to the Expo was not as easy as walking from one end of the building
to the other, it was not really a problem. Visitors to the Arnold Weekend in Columbus every year are
able to travel from various hotels to the Convention Center to the Veteran's
Memorial Auditorium with no great difficulty. Of course, Jim Lorimer uses more busses for transport than
were available in Las Vegas, so this is one area in which the Olympia organizers
should consider an upgrade.
But the Las Vegas Convention is an ideal place for an Expo,
with a great deal of floor space. Too
much, in one sense, since so much room for the booths and attendees sometimes
gave the impression it was less crowded than it actually was. Prejudging for all the women's
events was held in the Expo Hall to enable the audience to view the competition
without additional charge – an approach pioneered in Columbus by the
Arnold. Whether or not the organizers
at either contest are losing money by have free prejudging for the women
has never been determined. But
since there is so little promotion for female bodybuilding, fitness or figure
during the year (and more about this later) it may well be that selling tickets
for women's prejudging might be a problem under these circumstances.
THE BAD
Before the weekend even got underway, fans of female bodybuilding
were outraged by the decision of AMI/Weider, organizer of the Olympia, to
demote the Ms. Olympia finals from Friday night at the Orleans Arena to Saturday
afternoon in the Expo Hall. We heard all sorts of explanations for this. One event official stated this
was because AMI/Weider was trying to promote their Friday night pay-per-view
broadcast and believed that including women bodybuilders would hurt ticket
sales. Another said this was
done to help the female bodybuilders
by giving them a chance to be seen by an audience that would be unwilling
to pay for prejudging tickets.
Rationalizations aside,
this decision would seem to be totally in line with the policy of AMI/Weider
to give little or no attention to female bodybuilders in either Flex or
Muscle & Fitness. You would think, if you own the most
prestigious bodybuilding event in the world and it features both male and
female competitors, and you also have two highly successful physique publications,
that you would use your magazines and their associated websites to promote
ALL the competitors and help sell a lot more tickets. This is Business & Promotion 101,
but that's not that the AMI/Weider people have decided to do.
 |
Even though it was demoralizing having the Ms.
Olympia finals demoted to the Expo Hall, the lighting was brighter and we were closer to the stage to see the women and shoot photos. |
This demotion of female
bodybuilding has had a demoralizing effect on the women competitors themselves
and many of their fans. The resulting lack of interest in the
Ms. Olympia 2005 has a precedent. Many
years ago, when Lenda Murray was the reigning Ms. Olympia, the poster that
came out to promote the event featured a pretty but hardly competitive female
bodybuilder and relegated Lenda is the mention of "also competing." Some promotional genius had decided this
would appeal more to a "mainstream" audience and increase ticket
sales. It
had the opposite affect. Lenda
received all sorts of letters and calls from fans who told her they would
not be attending the Olympia that year because they didn't want to see her
humiliated on stage and cheated out of her deserved victory. The
promoter ended up having to give away tickets to fill up the theater.
Who knows how many fans of female bodybuilding decided
not to attend the Olympia in 2005 because of how the women bodybuilders were
being treated? How many contest
and Expo tickets were not sold? How
many hotel rooms were not booked? How
many restaurant meals were not ordered?
If there is a problem selling tickets to the Friday finals
when it includes FBBs, why is Jim Lorimer able to do it in Columbus? There aren't as many tickets sold for
Friday at the Arnold as for the men on Saturday, but Lorimer sells enough
to make money from the event. If
one promoter is able to do this successfully and the Olympia is not, perhaps
the Olympia promoters need to go to school on how things are done in Columbus
and change their strategy.
There was also the question of no backstage access to any
but Weider reporters or photographers. The
rationale seems to be that AMI/Weider is promoting the event and so should
retain exclusive rights to the backstage area. Fine – if you are talking about the Mr. Olympia. But the Weider publications give very
little promotion and publicity to any of the women and certainly almost none
to female bodybuilding. So what
good is it to have Weider photographers backstage shooting pictures that
will never be used? Instead,
AMI/Weider ought to be ENCOURAGING photographers and reporters to the dressing
rooms and pump-up areas when the women are competing. They
should be trying to get as much publicity and promotion for the women as
possible from other publications because THIS HELPS SELL TICKETS.
|
||||
"Meet The Champs" is an interesting part of the
Olympia Weekend that continued in 2005 |
There is also the matter of the "press conference." The female and
the male competitors squeezed into a small room with a lot of fans and not
much sign of the non-physique press. No real questions, just more of that "are
you going to kick so-and-so's ass this year?" What about physique stars
outside in a mall or appearing at the biggest gym in town? Do something that
attracts the local TV channels and reporters. This attempt at a press conference
accomplished nothing but entertaining people who had already decided whether
or not to buy tickets to the contests.
AMI/Weider is headed by David Pecker, who by all accounts
is a smart man and a good businessman. It
was Pecker who came up with the brilliant idea of buying up the warring Florida
tabloids and to create a situation in which they increased circulation by
dividing up the potential audience without stepping on each other's toes. I
can only conclude that bad business decisions seemingly coming from Pecker
are the result of bad information and advice coming from those he has entrusted
with the organizing of the Olympia and deciding on the content of the Weider
magazines. He has no great experience of the world
of physique competition or what the audience for physique magazines best
respond to. As any CEO in his
position, he has to delegate and depend on advisers
One would hope – for all our sake's – that
Mr. Pecker upgrades the quality of his inner council in the future. And that the IFBB would step up and insist
that ANY contest promoter make plans that are also in the best interests
of the federation and the competitors to whom it is responsible.
THE UGLY
The Orleans Arena turned out to be an ideal venue badly used. To begin with, the lighting was too dim. It wasn't bad lighting, there just wasn't enough of it. When this happens, it is usually because the lighting director made sure the lighting was adequate for television but gave no thought to the judges, the still photographers or the audience. Modern television cameras are so sensitive and so forgiving that they can make a foggy day look bright and cheerful. But the rule of thumb for ANY production director should be simple: light for the still cameras and EVERYBODY will be happy. The judges and audience will be able to see the stage and it will look great on television as well.
Additionally, the lighting behind
Of course, it took the Arnold about 10 years to get
their lighting right this so getting through to lighting directors obviously
isn't easy. Let's hope they are quicker on the uptake
at the Olympia.
Another problem was the seating arrangements. In a system developed by former Olympia
promoter Wayne Demilia, the VIP ticket holders sit up front, the judges behind
them and the photographers still further back. This puts the judges and photographers WAY too far back. Especially
given the low level of the light. John
Balik of Iron Man was using a super-expensive 500 MM lens and he was about
the only photographer getting any kind of close-ups of the women on the stage. Who knows how the distance from the stage
might have affected the judging.
|
||||
The lighting should have been about
twice as bright. These photos were exposed at the equivalent of 1000
ASA. But that wouldn't have fixed the problem of heads continuely in the way of the photographers - as you can see. |
Again, if you look at how things are done in Columbus you'll
find the judges sit in front, the photographers (only two rows) sit behind
them and the VIPs behind the photographers. I
don't recall any VIPs at the Arnold complaining because they were sitting
30 feet from the stage instead of 10 feet. So, all in all, it's
obvious that putting the VIPs so close in Las Vegas is a BAD IDEA
– bad for the judges and bad for the photographers who generate the kind
of publicity and promotion that helps sell tickets next year.
In addition to sitting so far back, the photographers were
not able to get unobstructed shots of the stage during the women's events. Because there had to be a broad, flat
surface for the fitness women to do their routines, the stage throughout
Friday night was too low (the Mr. Olympia competitors stood on a raised platform). All
we could see from the photographers' rows were the heads of the judges – with
the occasional added obstruction of VIPs who stood up in our line up site
in order to shoot photos of their own.
This was equally a problem for the Weider photographers
as for everyone else, so you would think that AMI/Weider, publisher of physique
magazines, would be as concerned as anyone. However, it is not likely there will be much coverage of fitness
or figure, much less female bodybuilding, in these publications. So that may be why the promoters weren't
motivated to create a better working environment for the still photographers.
Unfortunately, what was happening on stage
was also hampered to some degree by amateurish production. The
women came out in the wrong order so that the Emcees didn't know what name
to announce. There were instances
of the wrong music being played (which, to be honest, happens sometmes at
the best of contests). But even
more disturbing was the inclusion in the Friday finals of a Mr. Olympia "Wild
Card" event. Fans who bought
tickets to see the women compete found that something like half the evening
was taken up by a contest featuring men who were not good enough to qualify
for the Mr. Olympia vying for a chance to compete on stage on Saturday night. Taking nothing away from a line-up of
very good bodybuilders, but they were not Olympia
quality and – even more to the point – THEY WERE NOT WOMEN!
I talked to one of the expediters afterwards who was surprised
that the men took up so much time and kept coming back out on stage time
after time. This was not what
was supposed to happen according to the schedule he had been given. The fitness and figure women were forced
to stand around backstage and wait – and when they did get out in front
of the audience they didn't even do their scheduled quarter turns. It was obvious that somebody had decided
that, even though the fans had bought tickets to see women, what they really
wanted to see a lot of non-Olympia quality men.
The women competitors were treated as an after-thought
during what was supposed to be the Finals of figure and fitness competition.
This was just another sign that whoever was
making the decisions of AMI/Weider seems to have a low opinion of female
competitors and didn't consider them to be very important to the success
of the event. (I won't even go into the absurdity and
insult of the "Challenge Round" on Saturday night since that is
not a woman's issue and outside the scope of this report.)
There were all sorts of other indications
of confusion and lack of organization during the weekend. At
the Mr. Olympia finals, backstage microphones didn't function, people kept
coming out on stage to interrupt the Emcee (poor Mike Adamle) with unexpected
announcements and awards. One
of these awards was given to David Pecker himself, who looked thoroughly
uncomfortable being involved in such disorganized goings-on.
All in all, there just seemed to be too much attention
paid to micro-management and not enough to planning and organization. I know when I was shooting women's prejudging
at the Expo, security people (all friends of mine) kept coming over and apologetically
telling me I couldn't shoot from the corner of the stage, and then from beside
the stage. It turned out the head organizer of the whole event was standing
in the background and giving these instructions as to where I was or was
not allowed to shoot from. Aside
from the fact that photographing from angles gives better photo layouts and
is therefore to the benefit of the event – and that I was careful not
to block anyone's view – DIDN'T THE GUY HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO
THAN DECIDE WHAT THE PHOTOGRAPHERS SHOULD BE DOING? Isn't that the kind of thing the head-organizers
ought to be delegating? Perhaps
his attention should have been better directed to trying to prevent the finals
from turning into some kind of Chinese fire drill.
 |
Shooting at different angles
helps create more interesting layouts - and better publcity for the
competitors and the promoters. |
And this was only one example. I talked to Wayne Gallash of Australia who was doing video
interviews at the Expo. The
same organizer came up to him and told him he was blocking an aisle and had
to do his interviews somewhere else. Well,
maybe he was blocking traffic and maybe he wasn't. The point is – why was the individual
charged with organizing and overseeing the whole promotion of AMI/Weider
involving himself with whether aisles at the Expo were obstructed? There
should be other people given that responsibility. Given
this nit-picking and micro-management, no wonder so much went wrong at the
Olympia 2005!
CONCLUSION
There is no reason why AMI/Weider, which is a big and successful
organization full of smart and capable people, cannot get its act together
and create a first rate, successful and fully enjoyable Olympia Weekend. It
would be to everyone's benefit – including their own – to do
so. But a number of changes are going to have to be made:
- Rely
on producers and organizers who have a better understanding of the physique
world and it's audience and who are capable of creating a production team
that makes fewer mistakes.
- Don't
disrespect the women competitors – not just the female bodybuilders,
but the fitness and figure women as well. Have ALL the women compete on Friday night and don't
include some made-up event like a "Wild Card" men's contest.
- Promote
and publicize the women of the Olympia ALL YEAR LONG in the Weider magazines. This
will sell tickets to the events, to pay-per-view and increase the attendance
at the Expo.
- Open
up the backstage and dressing rooms to reporters and photographers during
the women's events. The female
bodybuilders, fitness and figure competitors need all the publicity they
can get.
- Brighten
up the lighting in the Arena. If
it looks good to the still photographers, it looks good to everyone.
- Seat
the photographers and judges ahead of the VIPs instead of behind them. If Jim Lormer can make this work,
so can the Olympia.
- Use
a producer who can make sure the Friday and Saturday finals run smoothly
– on schedule, as scheduled, no technical problems or confusion. Have
competent people focusing on each area of the weekend, with the head organizers
coordinating their efforts, not micro-managing.
- Remember,
this is the OLYMPIA – the most prestigious title in physique competition. Give
it the respect and effort it deserves.
MEMBER AREA