Lady Gaga at Mardi Gras? No, but now that we’ve got your attention…
Nice work to the spin doctors at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras for getting Lady Gaga’s name linked to the annual event.
Prior to holding a media briefing this week launching the Spencer Tunick nude art installation as part of the Mardi Gras Festival, someone at the organisation’s PR agency Mark Communications had an interesting idea.
Apparently Lady Gaga wrote a thesis on the famous photographer Tunick while she was at university.
Armed with this knowledge the agency got Tunick to extend an invitation to the US singer to join in on the nudity and frivolity planned for the March 1 shoot at the Opera House.
Not surprisingly, TV and press journos scrambled to attend the launch event held just a few days after it was revealed what Tunick had done.
The launch was extensively covered by the media including Channel Nine and Ten news, the Today show, the 7pm Project, The Daily Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald, AAP, 2GB radio and ABC News. It also managed a bit of coverage overseas.
Of course the media launch itself wasn’t without its own share of nudity, decked out with a re-enactment of a famous scene from Sex in the City where the character Samantha Jones is shown lying down with sushi strategically placed on her naked body.
But is Lady Gaga likely to bare all for Tunick’s shoot?
Probably not, but who cares? Not Mardi Gras. As far as it’s concerned, with all that extra publicity, mission well and truly accomplished.
The media launch for Spencer Tunick's nude art installation
Does anybody have access to the ratings for the parade on Arena? Apparently it rated very poorly last year – let’s hope this year was better.
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Hi DD,
According to a release on behalf of ASTRA this morning, 133,000, which I reckon is pretty good. Particularly as you’d expect that the potential audience would be somewhat diminished by those sufficiently motivated going along to the parade itself.
I caught some of the coverage, and thought that Arena did a good job (including I’m happy to say, as she’s taking a kicking elsewhere on the site today, Ricki-Lee Coulter).
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella