Appendix

1

The Ritz, Ybor is still a relatively new venue. Not only is the location of Ybor City a difficult obstacle because of the negative association Ybor City still has, but also community and public knowledge is also a obstacle The Ritz is overcoming.

The Ritz, relies on its promotion, goodwill and advertisement to get its name out in the public. Seeing a decrease in print advertisement, The Ritz has turned to social media sites to promote the venue’s image and upcoming events.

The Ritz uses Twitter,

Facebook and Myspace

as its main sources of

social media, you can

access all of these links

on the company’s web

site,

www.theritzybor.com.

The Ritz, also has a blog

and a Tourphotos

account on their website.

Appendix

2

The website is not only well designed and attractive but it also has testimonials from past and current clients. A photo gallery, calendar of events, information on the four rental rooms they use to host events, transportation options, directions that also include a map, nearly by hotels and dining establishments, the company’s history that includes photos, and a company bio. The web site also has a mailing list option on their page to receive additional information regarding upcoming events and news about The

Ritz.

When reviewing The

Ritz’s Facebook, it is

very clear that the page

is constantly updated,

and with a total of 3,358

likes it is clear that

Facebook is a great

social media outlet for

the venue. The

company’s Facebook

page has all of the

company’s contact

information, upcoming

events, as well as links

to their other social

media sites and photos

from past events.

Appendix

3

Just as successful as their

Facebook, The Ritz’s Twitter

is another useful social media

for the company. With a

number of 555 followers, The

Ritz follows 129, and has a

total of 478 tweets all

regarding upcoming news and

events.

Appendix

4

In conclusion, The Ritz does an excellent job of using social media outlets to

reach out to the public. All of the pages are attractively done and created. The

information that is provided on each outlet is consistent and precise. All outlets are

linked to one another which makes it very user friendly.

The Ritz’s MySpace account

is a great networking site for

the venue, consisting of

specific employee contact

information, company blogs,

photos, flyers, and a friend

base of 1,434 people. Links to

their Twitter and Facebook

accounts can also be found

on their Myspace page.

Appendix

5

Interview Transcript

Interview with The Ritz Ybor’s Okesene “Okie” Tilo

July 13, 2010 at 3:00 P.M.

At the Ritz Ybor

Our interview team is in black and Tilo’s responses are in red

Tell us with The Ritz, a little overview of the company and what it does, if you have a

mission statement.

The Ritz is a special events and live concert venue in Tampa, Florida. We host

everything from music concerts to performing art show cases to private events to

fundraisers, weddings and we have had everything from large events like the Maxim

Super bowl party to small such as a baby shower for 30 guest

Do you know a brief history or a timeline of the Ritz, like when they started, when they

picked up?

Yes it was originally built in 1917 as the Rovoli (sp?) Theatre and later expanded in the

1930s as the Ritz theatre, it was occupied by different tenants in the 90s and early

2000s and was known as The Masquerade Night Club. The Cavatono (sp?) family had

owned it at the time, they have owned it for 25 years, they decided in 2006 to reopen a

special events venue because Ybor needed it, and The Ritz Ybor officially opened June

24, 2008.

What was the biggest event that you guys there that gave The Ritz its name? Made

them standout?

I would say there’s two; obviously the Maxim Super Bowl Party just because that was

the “it” party when the Super Bowl was here last year, that was the biggest celebrity

super bowl party was well and the second one that put us on the map for concerts

would probably be the Lady Gaga, cause that was the first sold out show.

What is the organizational structure of the PR communication unit, like the location of

the top PR communication professional like where do you stand in the whole scheme of

things in The Ritz?

Were owned and managed by Radiant- which is an oil company. One of the owners

Nicole Nasavue (sp?) is my corporate contact for marketing decision. We work as a

Appendix

6

team so if there is something that I want that she’s not really that convinced on it, she

will let me run with it so it’s more, yes approval but then also we kind of work hand in

hand together. And then I also have a corporate director Stephanie Peturzelli who

oversees all divisions as well as Joe Cavatono Jr who’s the actual head boss but I

usually go through Stephanie and if there is any decisions that require a lot of money

involved she will have to go through Joe.

So that’s good, so you guys all work together, you are kind of the mastermind right and

you gotta get things approved through them?

Yeah I am the direct contact for The Ritz and any big money decisions I usually go

through Nicole and if not Nicole through Stephanie.

What is a typical PR communications activity or program? What do you do to get the

ball rolling on events? As far as media relations, media that you use, your efforts?

We host, one of the in-house events that we do is we host a monthly lunch in called

Taste and Tour of The Ritz Ybor and we invite about 50 guests. It’s free lunch its open

bar even though it’s during the daytime, its invite only. Basically we give them a tour of

the venue as well as the lunch and then it’s there just to show off the building. We invite

people from the media, members of different chambers of commerce, crews, lawyers,

doctors, and anyone who is interested in seeing the building or hasn’t actually been

inside the building.

And you guys approach them… they never come to you?

Some of them do, we were getting a lot of people interested in seeing the venue but

never had the chance to so we would invite them to that and we also do a lot of just kind

of get a list of who’s who of people we need to invite like big event planners or people

that spend a lot of money on events.

So you get a good contact list?

Yes, we’ve been segmenting it each month, before it has been a general invite but last

month we focused only on law firms before that we were doing nonprofit organizations

the month before that we did corporate planners, so we have been trying to focus on a

specific group. This next month, August, we are focusing on corporate planners as well.

What’s the best way you reach them? Through e-mail, phone call?

We usually do 3 touches: so we usually send an email then we follow up with a phone

call then we mail them something as well and it can be in any order. So we can mail

them something first then email then call.

Appendix

7

Katie handles all of the sales while Carla usually does all the tours, she always does

individual private tours, so we were figuring we could do one mass tour during the

month and then lure them in with free lunch and drinks and then we also give away a lot

prizes during that time. We do like a questionnaire and see who was paying attention on

this tour like, “What year was The Ritz built?” and the first person to raise their hand.

As far as your internal relationships with you and Katie, how do you arrange things with

the schedule like how many people you need for an event, decorations?

Her and Carla are the ones who are responsible for selling the venue. Once we have a

client and the contract signed they usually turn the client’s information to me and then I

contact them. It’s just called a media relations form, just to see if this a private or public

event, can we list this publicly, are there tickets being sold, whose able to come, where

are you selling tickets, did you want this event promoted. Some of the events that are

private, like we had India Festival last year, was a private event but they still wanted it

advertised and promoted, so that was just something that I would need to know. Just to

show off.

What do you do you for promotions if you do have to promote an event what is your first

step?

Basically we have an advertising budget that I work with Nicole on and there’s just

different mediums that we go through, we were focusing heavily on print the first year

but now we kind of switched to, it’s a little more online with a little bit in print cause we

weren’t really seeing a return back on our print advertisement. I basically ask them

where you are you guys advertising and sometimes, actually a lot of the clients when

they contact us they ask where we advertise and they go to the other avenues that we

don’t. We always do TBT and they’ll ask do you guys do you do you guys do the

Oracle? So they’ll advertise where we don’t. (* They do all in house advertising)

As far as a crisis communication plan like if anything happens where it’s like the sound

goes out or the venue is just a mess or there’s not enough tickets sold and too many

people that wanna come in, a fight.

There’s, let me see how we can break this down. I’m usually during the day like, I’m

usually the pre event I guess you could say I’m also post event. But during an event, it

would be Katie, she would be there cause she is kind of our client liaison. Carla is the

concert promoter and then Krista is the venue manager and then she has the MOD’s

(Mangers On Duty) directly below her so they would be the ones that would handle any

emergency type situations. If it were a client emergency it would be Katie or Carla.

So the client, who deals with the client? - Katie. Concert Promoter is Carla so it depends

if tickets aren’t selling that well that would mainly go through Carla.

Appendix

8

Do you guys ever do things where you team up with radio stations and do giveaways for

concerts?

Yes and they usually approach us like if there is a big show like “okay we want in on

this.”

So is it something you would do if you had left over tickets, like I really have to get rid of

these.

We can kind of eye because the promoter usually and there usually spot on can predict

the way a show gonna sell and if its falling under then they will usually come, they will

tell Carla who will come to me and ask what can we do to push these. Ex: can team up

with a radio station and do some giveaways, can you do some street team distribution,

can you plug it more on your advertisement.

So you pretty much have to pick up their slack when they don’t sell?

Yeah, just have to push extra.

What’s the biggest crisis that you’ve had to deal with?

Dealing with PR, one of my jobs is I have to come up with six in house events that The

Ritz owns mainly everything that is put on there is brought on by someone else so we

do the “A Square One” the art fashion shows, we are doing this “Battle of the Bands”,

we did a bridal expo, we do our Christmas party, we usually do an anniversary party

which we didn’t do this year. So the biggest challenge I had to face is actually getting

people in the door and selling it cause it’s a new event and were still a new venue their

not familiar with what type of event this is. We did a masquerade ball like two years ago

the attendance was very sluggish and we like really plugged and pushed it.

It’s mainly promotion you’d say that what you have to… Yeah just reading the market,

cause Masquerade Thursday was like the big thing here 10 years ago, so we were

figuring like everyone that was in high school or college that went there is now

grownups so were going to the Thursday Masquerade, Return Masquerade but it was

going to run like eight PM to midnight. Because everyone is grown up and they’re going

to work the next day or they have families. But everyone was interested it just didn’t

work out.

So you were doing that to reach the old clientele and bring them back to other things?

Taking them back, yeah but it’s still, I have to come up with another event this year and

I have, I’m not sure what to do I was, I mean I was thinking of, they want me to do like a

Halloween party but I think there like is such a bad association with Guavaween and

Ybor. I don’t think anyone “Oh a Halloween party in Ybor”… no one is going to come.

Appendix

9

One of the biggest challenges as well with The Ritz is also not just selling The

Ritz, but selling Ybor City cause people still have that stigma. But it’s actually cleaned

up, crime rate has went down, a lot of the riff raft that was coming in here is not coming

here anymore.

This Battle of the Bands thing we started last week, they were asking me what I

was expecting and I just kinda had to guess just on like buzz, word of mouth, like what

inquires we were getting from people via email and phone, just to kinda determine how

many people would be there because we’d never done it before so we didn’t know.

So do you have to pull your foot out of your mouth when you say “oh yeah it’s going to

be a great turn out we have done this and this and no one shows up and you’re kind of

like … I always estimate under.

So you play it safe… Always. You never go over so you never have to take your foot out

of your mouth and like. And I know we try and do an in house event here before, it was

kind of a bigger scale event with the concert and it just we were putting advertisement

here but we weren’t really looking at what type of audience was going to buy the tickets

and show up.

Going back to what you said underestimating, like do you underestimate but then

overestimate when you are planning?

No I pretty much always underestimate.

It’s never been where like you ran out of stuff?

Oh we’ve, there have been instances where like we weren’t expecting that, but I’d rather

play it safe than you know. Say like there is going to be a thousand people and then like

400 show up, yet all these people came in for work, I think it’s easier like calling people

in like “hey do you wanna come in?” rather than like “hey you gotta go home.”

So the worst thing is you would be understaffed not so much like running out of food or

anything like that?

I’ve had an event where we have ran out of food, it was gone, it was a catered event – it

was gone the first hour and it was a five hour event. What do you do then, you just say

sorry you snooze you lose? Yeah, you just kinda have to make it up as you go. Like

okay can we order more food, there’s not enough time cause no one is going to be able

to prepare this amount of food in this time, and by the time it gets here it’s going to be

close to the end of the event so. You never send an employee out like here’s $400 go

get as much take out from these restaurants? – We’ve done stuff like that before but it’s

just, I’d rather do it where it is presented right. If we run out than we ran out but I’d

rather have like nice catered food like in this instance than hey just go get whatever you

Appendix

10

can. So you’re more about the presentation of it all than rather just like trying to

accommodate everyone? If it runs out it runs out, it actually looks good like the food

must have been good. We should have gotten here earlier or there was a lot of people

there cause the food is gone as opposed to yeah there’s like some greasy Chinese

food. It depends on the situation you and kinda judge by the audience like okay this is a

situation where we just need something, and it goes by event basis

How about your web communications like your website, your social media kit, like who

handles all that stuff?

Me.

Like what exactly, I know you have Facebook and Twitter but..

Yeah, besides those website- we actually go through someone that kinda does the

website maintenance but like updating it we had him create it where like any one of us

could go in there and update it ourselves because some of these concerts that come,

their very strict like “you need to put it up no earlier than 10 AM” If its up at 9:15 they go

crazy. So I handle everything pretty much online. If we need something major

something like hey we need this banner ad running across the top for like the month of

August he would have to do that.

Describe a typical day in the life of Okie and the PR department.

In all honesty it depends on the day. On Monday I am pretty much at Radiant all day

long. Meetings? We have a meeting at 10:30 that usually lasts till like 12:30,then I have

lunch then I have to meet back, like yesterday was a meeting all day like we didn’t get

done till like 5:30.

What do your meetings typically entail?

We do a standard one, what’s going on in the building and that includes everyone-

Krista, Niely (sp?), Chris. And then we talk about the upcoming events for that week, the

events for next week, the events that happened last week and then there’s the separate

meeting, they’ll have a sales and marketing meeting with me, Katie, and Carla, and I’m

usually out of their sales meetings then I go to other meetings with like about décor

because that falls under my division and they look at everything financially like what’s

coming in what we are expecting, did we meet our goal, did we meet our quotas? It

covers everything; this is Radiant’s sole day during the week to kinda know what’s going

on cause everything else during the week is brought around. Tuesday through Friday

we are our own there depends if there is an event here if Katie is having an event or

Carly, sometimes I’ll usually help them, if there’s not usually it’s just Wednesday I have

to do the TBT ad I have to update them. There’s like a set schedule and then I also do

Appendix

11

admin stuff like I do all the payroll I do all the scheduling, my invoices and all that, I’ll be

like the direct contact with the Radiant on that.

As far as your annual report and finances, can people access those for The Ritz or do

they have to go through Radiant to do that like how do we access that type of

information?

They would mostly have to go through Radiant.

How would you say the overall energy is with everyone that works here like the office?

Is it mainly positive when you go into a meeting are you like ehhh, I just know I am

going to get hammered and all they are going to do is complain?

No there usually good, well if you do something bad and you know you are going to be

in trouble then you would be dreading it but I’ve pretty much been fine every single

meeting. So when you leave you usually leave feeling good? Usually feeling good I

know March/April we had literally like something going on every single day then plus we

were doing the Bridal Show and we were planning Festa Italia (sp?) cause we go that

as well then I had the Square launches, we had a lot on our plate. That moment was

stressful but it still worked out.

How do you show your image in a good light to the community, do you do any charities

or nonprofit like I know you mentioned Festa Italia (sp?) are you involved in that pro

bona or is it also to promote The Ritz?

Pretty much we are a sponsor of Festa Italia (sp?) and that’s pro bona. We had that

Tampa Bay Cut For a Cure event when we asked for all employees to volunteer their

time and we hosted and event for free just because it was a good event to have and it

was for charity and then we’ve also Katie could probably contest we do a lot of nonprofit

events even ones that don’t have a budget at all we’ll still try to work with them

somehow like Metro Charities we have something coming up with them. We’ve worked

with the Tampa Bay Business for Culture and the Arts we are doing an event with them

as well as well as The One Voice Foundation in the end of September. We also donate

a lot of tickets; a lot of prizes to organizations that write us that has something going on

“hey can you donate something for this raffle?” We usually always do participate in

those. And just like today, Tampa Bay and Company which is for Tampa Bay tourism,

Katie she likes volunteered at their tall ships this morning. There was an IMP meeting,

which is the meeting planners and I volunteered to work their party one night. It was

basically we had our name on there saying The Ritz Ybor volunteer. I did something

else with the Ybor Chamber, last week Wednesday, they had some photo shoot thing

and I volunteered and helped, that and the fact granted it was free win and food.

Is that something the company encourages you guys to do (volunteer)?

Appendix

12

Yeah, we’re members of like 10 different groups like the Greater Tampa Chamber, The

Ybor Chamber, Tampa Bay and Company, MPI Nais (sp?), Brides.com, Tampa Bay

Business Skilled, Gaybor coalition, Ybor Arts Association. And since we are members

the usually ask for volunteers.

What about when you guys are booking concerts, how do you get big stars like Lady

Gaga and stuff to come to your venue, do you have actually go and reach out to them or

do they contact you?

Kinda both. We work with Live Nation and AG live, Daddy Cool (sp?) that do a lot of

shows, So we have that relationship with them but I know Carla, who handles the

concerts, she also just cold calls and seeks out people like “Hey I’m Carla with The Ritz,

we’ve done this I would like to have you guys bring a show” so it’s a little bit of both.

LiveNation also does the 1800ASKGARY Amphitheater, so what’s the deciding factor if

they are coming to come here or there?

There’s a thing called Pollstar and it tells you, you can look up Lady Gaga and it tells

you what her average attendance is what the average crowd size is. You can already

tell like okay The Ritz is too small or you can say oh Raymond James is too big, it can

kinda tell you. That’s pretty much what all concert venues use and show promoters and

it tells you the cost of the artist, if they are currently on tour. So they know should I

inquiry about bringing this person to our venue.

How many hours from start to finish would you say it takes you to plan, preplan, from

start to finish how many hours?

I can already tell you for one of the in house events I am doing in November 13th, I’m

already starting. Depends on how big the event is, Battle of the Bands we knew we

kinda had to do some construction to the building and it was kinda a little light on the

schedule so I had two months to get that together.

The day of an event, what is that? Are you there start to finish through the whole thing I

know you said Katie handles …

That one since it was our (bridal expo) event, yeah we were there from the very

beginning when doors opened to the end when the event was over but not when the

building closed because that’s when like we go to the managers like Kristen and them

and are like alright we’re out.

So like how early do you go prior to the event?

We usually have to like have a like floor plan diagram of how we want the room set up

where we want tables at where do we want chairs and we give it to the operations team

Appendix

13

which is Krista and Chris and they kinda make sure that the event is set up and usually

I’ll go in early just to check to make sure everything is running smoothly and everything

is in place.

How early?

I know like a big event like that and Square One shows I usually want it the day before

just to be on the safe side. If there isn’t anything else going on because sometimes, like

the Bridal Expo we wanted it set up the day before but we actually had an event the

night before so we had to set it up that morning and it was craziness. But something

smaller I can go in probably like at least 4 hours before doors open.

What’s the most rewarding thing about your job?

Seeing something that you created and like put a lot of time and energy into like see it

actually take place and be successful. Like when you come up with an event and it

actually happens and a lot of people are like hey we had a good time, and the turnout

was great. It feels good.

What’s the most stressful?

Just mine is just numbers. Just how many people were in the door, how’s business

doing. Are people having a good time or are people bored?

Bio, tell us who you are, where you went to school, how you got into this business.

I went to USF, I started there in 1998 and then I was done there 2002 actually like 2003.

I was a political science major and I was going to go to law school was my original

intention but then I was done with school and I just didn’t want to do anything else with

school again. And I actually worked for an environmental company doing their

accounting and contracts over there. I met Maria who is one of the owners of The Ritz

through a mutual friend. That mutual friend needed help doing an event and I helped

him with that. It turned out to be a big, it was a huge turnout there was a big money

maker for them. SO then I helped The Ritz with other stuff even though I was working

somewhere else. And then I got laid off, it was around the same time they got the

Maxim party and then they got Lady Gaga, so it was getting busier for them and they

just asked me to help out and then helping out turned into working here more often

which turned into fulltime.

So what was like the date around that you started?

It was the end the march, officially full time the end of March last year. But I helped with

their grand opening with was June of 2008 and I met Maria probably February 2008 of

Appendix

14

that year. And that first event we did at The Ritz before like all the construction was

done was in February and then we did another one in May.

If there is one thing like one bit of advice that you would give to a PR person what would

it be? (35:44)

Answer every single, or reply to every single email and phone call and text message

that you get even if you don’t know the answer “hey, thanks for sending this over. I’ll be

in touch” and be organized.

What about for someone who wanted to get into PR how would you advise them? Like

how/what is the best way to start like internships with this or intern a little bit

everywhere?

I would do some internships definitely.

As far as networking, if someone is trying to get into PR, like go to every networking

event that you can…

That actually doesn’t hurt because, we’ve been around 2 years and we still go to

networking events where they’ve never been to The Ritz and they have actually never

heard of The Ritz. Definitely network definitely intern and definitely which falls in line

with networking and socializing just reply to everyone that tries to contact you.

And what would you say as far as if someone was applying for a job, on a cover letter,

what would get your attention?

Their experience, like looking on their actually resume. On a cover letter just the way

they write if it wasn’t just the standard cover letter. If it was a little more creative. Usually

they are always the same, there’s nothing that really pops

How do you stay organized? How do you, what is your biggest thing to stay organized,

biggest tool I guess?

Always first thing when I wake up in the morning I always check e-mails and respond to

them and then before I go to bed. Even if it has been a late late long night I still look at

e-mails. I may not reply then but I will like on my e-mail thing I can star it so I make sure

that when I get up in the morning I can reply to this. And then I put everything in a folder

and its color-coded.

Side note Okie uses gmail calendar and strongly advises and recommends it

to stay organized, he showed it to us before we left and what kind of stuff had

Appendix

15

on it. Both personal and work related. Also says he writes a lot of stuff down

and does use to do lists.

Contact Info:

The Ritz Ybor- Tampa’s Premier Special Events Venue

Okesene “Okie” Tilo- Public Relations and Marketing

O: 813-247-2555 ext 6555

F: 813-248-1435

1503 E 7th Ave.

Tampa, FL 33605

Okesene@theritzybor.com

WWW.THERITZYBOR.COM

Appendix

16

Thank You Letter

July 20, 2010

To: Okesene “Okie” Tilo:

We just wanted to take a moment to thank you for allowing us to take time out of

your busy and hectic schedule to speak with us and giving us some insight into a day in

life of Okie.

The information you provided us with was beyond helpful and something that we

could not have taken away from a textbook or in the classroom. We really enjoyed the

experience; it is not every day that we get to speak with someone, such as yourself,

who has such an amazing background and experience in public relations.

Your suggestions and tips on organization, what a cover letter should entail,

networking and career building were very much appreciated and will certainly be taken

into account when we begin our journey further into Public Relations.

Again, thank you for your cooperation and for taking time out of your day to allow

us the opportunity to learn more about The Ritz, Ybor and the services you provide.

Please accept this USF Alumni coffee mug as a token of our gratitude.

Thank You,

Nastassia Czarnec

Rachael Reidenbach

Jessica Venoy

Christine Lewis