Six month’s ago, who knew or cared what could be done on Zoom. Former Mother and BMB creative director, Jay Pond-Jones, and Paul Baker of Headway Talent, have put yet another feather in the cap of the video conferencing facility that has become an “essential service” during 2020.
Boom Boom Zoom is a new pay-per-view provider of entertainment via Zoom, devised to help comedians, music artists and performers who have lost income due to the cancellation of their live shows as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown. The live shows span comedy, talks, music and quizzes, with the potential to reach a paying audience of up to 10,000 people. Upcoming shows include live music from Duke Special, a new Clinton Baptiste show, and the weekly late-night comedy show – The Na-Nite Show featuring Angelos, and Barry from Watford.
The new venture is also looking ahead to taking advertising and sponsorship during live streaming of performances from artists including Clinton Baptiste from Channel 4 series, Phoenix Nights, and Shooting Stars’ Angelos Epithemiou.
Baker and Pond-Jones had been developing a Clinton Baptiste sitcom idea with Alex Lowe, the comedian who plays him, before the pandemic outbreak. When the Clinton Baptiste live theatre tour was cancelled due to COVID-19 they came up with the idea of re-purposing Zoom as a live entertainment platform and putting a Clinton show on there.
Once things return to normal and audiences can get back into live venues, Boom Boom Zoom plans to continue with a full schedule of live entertainment events, not just from isolation, but performance venues, studios and locations all over the world.
Baker commented, “Creating Boom Boom Zoom was born out of necessity as a reaction to lockdown and the closure of venues across the world. Its success has demonstrated the public’s appetite for the experience of live performances, even if they can’t be in the same building as the act. What we have quickly learnt though, is that there is longevity in the model. We’ll be producing live-streamed, paid-for content way after the restrictions have lifted. We can facilitate artists reaching audiences that otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to access. Jay’s experience across all kinds of creative has been especially useful when helping to build something new like this – but it’s especially useful to have someone with live TV, music and comedy experience alongside his brand work.”
Pond-Jones added, “Zoom offers something different – ‘nichecasting’— broadcasting directly to a super-engaged audience. We’re actively looking for diverse talent with strong social followings to expand our line-up. The unique access it gives audiences to the talent is creating a different kind of entertainment, which is very exciting creatively. Paul’s experience as an agent and promoter combine brilliantly in this new idea. I’m really excited and happy to be involved. Aside from the buzz of creating a new brand, it sits well alongside my other entertainment work with Studio Sixty Billion.”