How Blue Man Group learned to see green - Oct. 2, 2012

(Fortune) — When the founders of Blue Man Group decided to get bald and blue, they had no idea that shooting goo out of their chests and teaching fractal geometry would turn into two decades of fun and a multimillion-dollar show business enterprise. Today an average of 60,000 people a week attend Blue Man Group performances in six cities around the world — not including the touring shows — at an average ticket price of $59, or roughly $3.54 million in revenue a week from sellouts. Co-founders Matt Goldman, 51, Phil Stanton, 52, and Chris Wink, 51, continue to write and produce the shows, perform for special events — and have no thoughts of retiring. Their story:

Phil Stanton: I moved to New York in 1986 to study acting and pursue a career in theater. Chris was the first person I met on my first catering job. Matt and Chris had known each other since they were kids.

Matt Goldman: After college, I was a producer for Omni Resources, a software company. It was a time when punk rockers would walk by Wall Street guys in Armani suits, and neither would blink.

Stanton: We’d hold salons on Sundays with friends and started going to see performance art in town. We started to think of a show we’d like to see, and Chris came up with the idea of a bald and blue character.

Chris Wink: We were trying to create a character that was exposed and stripped down. We think of the Blue Man as being both a hero and an innocent, and baldness helps evoke both. The color blue just felt right.

via How Blue Man Group learned to see green – Oct. 2, 2012.

Related articles

• Woe is Tobias Fünke: Blue Man Group To Feature Female Role For The First Time [Blue Man Group]
• Video Editing: Blue Man Group.
• The colorful travels of a Blue Man
• Blue Man Group comes to Oklahoma City
• Fred Armisen

About these ads