Nevadan at Work: Official keeps Station’s stage slate stocked

Judy Alberti is an entertainment industry veteran. For 15 years, she's been responsible for Station Casinos Inc.'s entertainment strategy, bookings, budget, production and promotion. As the casino company has grown, so has the number of venues and concerts she oversees.

This year alone, Alberti will oversee 1,000 live concerts and lounge acts at 14 venues. Under her leadership, both Green Valley Ranch Resort and Boulder Station have been named Casino of the Year by the Academy of County Music.

Alberti also has a knack for spotting early some of the top names in the music business, including Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts, Keith Urban and Michael Grimm, a 2010 winner of "America's Got Talent."

Along the way, Alberti formed a close friendship with Toby Keith, who went from performing at a 500-seat venue to selling out 8,800 seats at the Red Rock Amphitheater.

This year, Keith surprised Alberti by flying to Las Vegas for her birthday party.

All things considered, not a bad career choice if you can handle the demands of a 60-hour workweek.

Question: Do you find yourself competing with Strip venues for acts?

Answer: For headline entertainment, absolutely we compete with the Strip. We have Toby Keith and Eric Church, who will be here Aug. 6. Motley Crue, Poison, New York Dolls tour is going to be here on June 18, so certainly with those acts. And even at our poolside Revolution concert series we have the Gypsy Kings and Weezer. With all of those acts we are ... competing with the Strip every single day. On a different level, with our lounge acts there is less competition because they have moved more toward the nightclub scene on the Strip. Certainly, they are doing live entertainment, but not as much. They are appealing more to tourists ... we are geared toward locals. And the locals still have that desire for live entertainment.

Question: Do you price your summer pool concert series at $30 as a loss leader to get people to gamble and eat at Red Rock Resort?

Answer: We are always price-sensitive because we are a local casino company and because of the economy. What we are really trying to do is cover the costs of the act and production.

Question: What's your role in booking acts for Station Casinos?

Answer: I book everything and then I oversee the staff that takes over and sees it through from evolution to when the artist leaves the building. That includes the marketing, promotion -- which is different from marketing -- as well as advertising and contracts.

Question: How do you decide which entertainers to book?

Answer: For the most part it's Kevin Kelly and Frank Fertitta, our COO and CEO, respectively. There was a planning meeting in November where we went through hundreds of artists, asking, "Who do we want to bring here this year?" and, "Who is on our target list?" We just sit down and decide who we want. That's when I get on the phone with agents.

Question: Is there an artist Station Casinos helped break to whom you remain close?

Answer: We helped break Toby Keith. He went from selling 500 tickets to selling out 8,800 tickets at Red Rock Amphitheater. I've literally known him for 13 years and he has become a good friend. He has that loyalty, because we were the people in Las Vegas who believed in him.

Question: What happened on your birthday?

Answer: This year on my birthday my girls in the office surprised me. I thought we were just having dinner with them, but apparently it had been in the works for a long time -- unknown to me. Toby Keith showed up at my birthday and we had dinner. He flew in on his private jet at 7 p.m., we had dinner, went out to a club and at 1 a.m. he got on his jet and flew home.

Question: Is there a cost ceiling that will keep you from booking a certain concert?

Answer: There is a threshold for what people will pay in general. We have 8,800 seats and MGM can go up to 15,000. So there is a threshold we can't meet because we would have to overcharge for the ticket or lose a lot of money at the door, which is typically something no corporation wants to do.

Question: So no Garth Brooks concert with a $225 ticket?

Answer: Right. We only would do that at one place, Palace Station, because it is close to the Strip. It would appeal to tourists. In general we (price) our tickets starting at around $15 to locals so that we can have some repeat local business. But with Garth Brooks -- I've seen him once, he's fabulous. But as a local, I don't know how many times I would go back to see Garth. As a local, how many times would you go back to see the same show with any of the shows?

Question: So Heart and Julio Iglesias are in your price range and Lady Gaga isn't?

Answer: Absolutely. ... Typically that's not an artist we go after with a venue that has 8,800 seats. One of our competitive advantages is having so many venues with different seating capacities. We can grow an artist like Toby Keith from a 500-seat (venue) to an 8,800-seat venue. We can also say we have a 1,800-seat venue that's perfect for Julio Iglesias.

Question: Do artists (like) Heart or Rascal Flatts play one show on the Strip and then a show at a Station property?

Answer: Not in this town. That would be in competition with us. Some people might see them in two different places, but for the most part they'll make a choice. It's an educated guess. The question is. "Will they sell out my venue, assuming they sold 15,000 seats the night before?" The only time I remember that happening was years ago, the Rolling Stones played the MGM one night and played a really high-dollar ticket the next night at the Hard Rock (Hotel). That actually worked.

Question: What is the weirdest request you've ever received from an artist?

Answer: We had an artist last year at Red Rock who had a six-page (contract) just for their hotel room and how everything had to be a very certain way. There had to be two pieces of fruit in three separate rooms ... we are talking very specific fruit, for example, two oranges here, two apples there and two bananas in another room. It also had to be completely blacked out to the point we had to drywall the windows because (the artist) could not be able to see (their) hand. It had to be a complete blackout. We had to bring in separate furniture because the furniture in our rooms is fixed. They had to have their television at a 45-degree angle to their writing desk.

Contact reporter Chris Sieroty at
csieroty@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893.