Prestige Promotions

ROCKHAPPENZ Public Collection

Prestige Promotions  —  a promotional company formed by Phil Warren

Prestige Promotions, established in 1976, is a company that specializes in providing event management and hospitality services, including a focus on theatrical and musical events.  The company offers a range of services, from organizing individual events to managing entire tours, and also provides hospitality for major sporting and social events.  The mid-70s were shaky for Phil Warren, and he retreated from touring with shows moving to Western Springs.  He observed that he got out of touring for a while when he had five shows on the road simultaneously - and who would have thought five shows would go crunch together.  He didn't want it to pull everything down, so he had to put Prestige Promotions into voluntary liquidation, otherwise it would have affected his efforts with dancehalls, clubs, cabarets and Radio I, so the promotion company had to go to the wall.

Prestige Promotions was managed in the South Island by Trevor Spitz, formerly drummer for The Four Fours.  After giving up as drummer with The Four Fours, Trevor Spitz made wide use of his entrepreneurial skills, running nightclubs and becoming a booking agent, talent scout, television marketer and producer.  His Christchurch Clubs, and his skills as a promoter helped get some of New Zealand's top acts of the day to get on the road, and his involvement in revitalising music television gave many artists the kind of exposure they could never have otherwise dreamed of.  He helped establish TV3 and held licensing rights to some of the biggest children's entertainment franchises.  He created a Thomas the Tank Engine replica based around his ride-on lawn mower and promoted a science and astronomy teaching aid for schools before succumbing to cancer in 2012.

After a sojourn in Australia, promoter Phil Warren asked him to come back and run the Soundshell in Napier for three weeks.  Warren was also keen to start another late-night club in Auckland and Spitz got the job getting the first Mojo's off the ground with The Mike Walker Trio in residency, but Phil Warren had also taken over a teenage club called Pride of Place in Christchurch and sent Spitz down for three weeks to manage the venue under the new name The Monaco.  Later it was reworked again under the name Aubrey’s, where Ticket performed as the new resident group.  Spitz remained in Christchurch and ran the Caledonian Ballroom where 1000 people would turn up on every Saturday night.  He ended up running three other teenage nightclubs: acting as agent for Warren’s Fullers Entertainment Bureau, late night venues Mojos in Christchurch and Dunedin and Adam’s Apple in Christchurch.  He was instrumental in helping local acts get established, and among them were Ticket, Craig Scott, Laurie Dee, The Chapta, Dave Kennedy and Link.

The Four Fours with Trevor Spitz on drums