How to be a super star that people truly love

Image: IMG_4949 cour­tesy of jea­neeem

A quick glance at the cover of any girlie mag­a­zine will undoubt­edly prove that as a soci­ety we have a love/hate rela­tion­ship with our favourite stars. On the one hand, we admire those that have suc­ceeded at mak­ing movies, the music busi­ness, and tele­vi­sion. As our admi­ra­tion grows, so does our con­stant scrutiny of their lives; it is as if we wanted to prove that there is some­thing wrong with them. We simul­ta­ne­ously idolise them, yet yearn for proof that they too are human. The media is par­tic­u­larly nasty in their con­tin­u­ous efforts to put them in a pedestal, only to quickly fol­low with the order to Ready-Aim-Fire!

Today I am going to talk about a super star that I admire, and recently had the priv­i­lege of observ­ing in action. His name is Michael Bublé. I will use my expe­ri­ence of his con­cert of the 31 May, 2008 in Syd­ney to describe 5 rea­sons why peo­ple love him. If you are con­sid­er­ing a career in the arts, this arti­cle will give you a spe­cial insight into what it really takes to become a Super Star that peo­ple truly love!

If you hang around for the next 5 weeks, you will also get to see Michael in action, as I will con­tinue this arti­cle with a series of weekly instal­ments dur­ing which I will describe in more detail each of the secrets Michael Bublé has used to be so famous. In each install­ment I will use a short video clip taken dur­ing the con­cert to show you by exam­ple how he per­son­i­fies these behav­iours every time he per­forms live. I encour­age you to stick around; I know you’ll enjoy this journey.

31 May, 2008 at the Syd­ney Enter­tain­ment Cen­tre: Michael Bublé Live

Let’s go back to how it all started. It was a rainy after­noon, and I was clear­ing an out-of-control desk. The biggest task was throw­ing a lot of unopened direct mail that I had received over the past few months. Sud­denly, a strange force com­pelled me to open one of them. It was one of those pesky pro­mo­tional emails from my credit card issuer, and as I was about to flick it with the rest, some­thing caught the cor­ner of my eye. There, in the mid­dle of the page, was an invi­ta­tion to pre-book tick­ets for Michael’s con­cert in Syd­ney for the 31st of May. I pulled out my wal­let, went to the the appro­pri­ate web site, and bought the tick­ets online. When the tick­ets arrived a few weeks later, I care­fully placed them in a safe loca­tion, and very quickly for­got about them.

Months went past. Then last Monday’s morn­ing I remem­bered about the tick­ets. As I got ready to wash the dishes after hav­ing break­fast with my fam­ily, fear crept into my mind: The con­cert was this Sat­ur­day, and I hadn’t organ­ised for a baby sit­ter yet! A few phone calls later the prob­lem was solved and I once again had peace of mind.

Sat­ur­day arrived. My wife and I got all dressed up with some­where very spe­cial to go, and left. We arrived at Sydney’s Enter­tain­ment cen­tre early, where there was already a sig­nif­i­cant crowd gath­ered at the arena. A young singer was gath­er­ing a small crowd in one of the cor­ners of the wait­ing area; while we watched him sing, we bumped into one of my good friends from work. We loi­tered for another 20 min­utes or so, when we decided to go in, sit down, and watch the show begin.

Two and a half hours later, my wife and I left the show with a deep respect for Michael Bublé. Dur­ing our drive home we talked about the things that make him unique . As I went to bed that night, I dreamt of his music and the con­cert. I also dreamt of writ­ing this arti­cle, and of the video I would later put together that would show the things we admired about him as a per­former. At that moment, the fate of this arti­cle was sealed.

How to be a super star that peo­ple truly love

There were five char­ac­ter­is­tics of Michael that make him unique and very lov­able. If you’re an aspir­ing star, here are five things you can learn from him to be the type of super star that peo­ple truly love:

1. Engage your audience
2. Appre­ci­ate the artists from your band and sup­port­ing act by acknowl­edg­ing in pub­lic their unique contribution
3. Show you too are human
4. Have a sense of humour and use it — have some fun while you’re in that stage!
5. Be thank­ful to your fans

Sounds pretty sim­ple, doesn’t it? Yet like many things in life, you can approach these rec­om­men­da­tions as some­thing that needs to be done, and do them only half-heartedly; or as some­thing you really want to do, and excel at them. Unless you pour your heart into it, your inner artist will not shine strongly across the stage and into your audience’s hearts.

Stay tuned for the next arti­cle in the series, in which I will explore the first of these rec­om­men­da­tions: Engage your audi­ence.

Links to arti­cles in the Michael Bublé series

• Intro­duc­tion (this article)

1. Engage your audience
2. Appre­ci­ate your crew
   
3. Show you are human
4. Have a sense of humour
5. Thank your fans (com­ing up)

Tagged as: concert, How to, Life, Love, Michael Bublé, Personal, Review, story, super star