It could be said that Shantero Productions began on a wing and a prayer ... a leap of faith fueled by the innate self-confidence of a couple of 26-year-olds who, in truth, had much to learn. In 1978 I graduated from the University of Calgary with a BFA in Drama & Music, giving me a solid technical background in theatre production. Annette's initial major was Music, but soon migrated to English, an
d she had the good fortune to find a job somewhat in her field, as a copyeditor/proof-reader. Post university, I ended up working on the order desk in a packaging factory selling large quantities of polypropylene, paper and burlap bags. One wintry weekend evening in late 1980 we were listening to our eclectic record collection and having a chat. Not for the first time we wished aloud we could see some of our favourite artists in concert. Although Calgary had an active concert scene at the time, there was so much of what we liked not being presented. That night it went from bemoaning to thinking there must be a lot of other people in this city with tastes similar to ours ... how hard could it be? A few months later on June 1, I quit my job (thank goodness Annette didn’t), and we officially created Shantero Productions. The name is a first-two-letter acronym of Shandi (our dog), Annette, Terry and Robin (our only child, at the time), and is pronounced Shan-TAIR-o, modeled on the pronunciation of Terry. Incidentally, the only person to ever figure this out was the late Roger Abbott, of Royal Canadian Air Farce, and, although the "S-H" stumped him, he did suspect it might have to do with the name of a family pet. So, now we had a fully registered company name, a graphic designer friend creating our logo masthead, business cards, etc... but no shows. There was no roadmap for this kind of thing, so it truly would be a 'Learn To Do By Doing' experience, in keeping with the motto of the 4H club I belonged to as a kid in rural Ontario. I began by going through our record collection and cold-calling managers and agents I found on the liner notes, which was assuredly more tedious than the couple of keystrokes it takes to find contacts today, but effective, nonetheless. One of the people I reached out to was Mary Makem, Tommy Makem’s wife and manager. She was a lovely down-to-earth woman who helped me stumble through the process with kindness and grace. And so, on Friday, October 2, 1981, at the 2,700-seat Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary, we presented our first show: Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy. We followed up with Chick Corea & Gary Burton, and after that John Prine & Steve Goodman. The Prine & Goodman show tipped the scale in what was a fledgling career choice at the time. The first show at the Jubilee sold out so quickly we were able to add a second, which also sold out! As I recall, tickets were $12.50 on the main floor and $10.00 on the balcony.Over the next several years, and still drawing exclusively from our record collection, Shantero presented a wide range of artists, including Jerry Jeff Walker, Moe Koffman, J.J. Cale, Riders in the Sky, Arlo Guthrie, Taj Mahal, Stephane Grappelli, Randy Newman, Pat Metheny, David Grisman and Don McLean.In 1988, just prior to the birth of our fourth child, we left Calgary and returned to rural Ontario, purchasing 10 acres of land with an old farmhouse and a tumble-down barn, 80 km southeast of Ottawa. At this juncture we decided to shift our focus from what had been primarily US artists, to predominantly Canadian, and also to organize small tours, rather than individual concert dates. We began close to home, with Ottawa, Cornwall, Brockville and Kingston. Within the next decade we continued to present musical artists from a wide variety of genres, but added comedy, theatre and ballet, while broadening our touring range to include all of Ontario. In 2000 we began to tour nationally, the first being a tour of the Prairies with comedian Ron James. In the quarter century since, there have been even more changes. We now have both our sons – Robin and Patrick – on board, as well as Harmony Koiter (a daughter from different parents). Hitherto we were limited in the number of shows we could present in a season, as I was the only person available to go on the road, while Annette worked as bookkeeper and kept the home fires burning. Now that there are five of us, however, it is not uncommon for Shantero to have three ... or even four ... shows on any given night taking place in different parts of the country. This allows us to present 80 to 100 shows during our fall presenting period of October to Christmas, and the same in our spring presenting period of March to the end of June.Also, we moved from primarily working with agents and managers, to working directly with a select number of artists who we produce exclusively across the country. We’ve become a one-stop shop: suggesting when it’s time to tour a certain region, putting together a routing, negotiating contracts with theatres, deciding on ticket pricing, and coordinating pre-sale and on sale dates. We do all forms of marketing including graphic design, the writing of media releases and radio commercials, organizing artist interviews with the press, social media design and implementation, as well as poster design and distribution. We book accommodations, advance the technical aspects of the tour, ensure a Shantero rep is out with the tour to act as a road manager and be the first point of contact, and then of course we deal with the final settlement paperwork and tour payout. It’s now 40+ years since we began this journey. Imagine the miles travelled back and forth across the country. Imagine the changes we’ve witnessed, instigated or experienced. Imagine, too, how very proud we are to say that through it all the basic tenets of our family business – Shantero Productions Inc – remain firm. Honesty. Integrity. Respect.
