Fans of the cancelled ABC soap opera One Life to Live said goodbye to the program on Saturday night in a send-off at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury in Westbury, Long Island. Some 2,000 rowdy fans—mostly women—attended the evening show, dubbed “Loving Llanview” after the fictional town where the show was set.
Ten of the show’s stars, including Ilene Kristen, Michael Easton, and Trevor St. John, shared behind-the-scenes stories from the set and answered questions from the crowd. They also tried to stump each other with trivia questions. Afterward, the 250 fans who purchased V.I.P. packages collected autographs and took photos with the stars.
“There is such a huge following and such a connection between soap opera personalities, the characters, and the fans,” said Mike Gold, president of Celebrity Placement Services, the West Bloomfield, Michigan-based company that organized the event. “The fans feel the actors are part of the families, their best friends, their loved ones. I've never seen that in any genre before. Now that One Life to Live has been cancelled, this is an opportunity to have stars on hand and have closure and say thank you to the fans for all their years of support.”
Gold, who also served as master of ceremonies, joked that the setup consisted of having the transportation show up, and the teardown consisted of transportation back to the hotel. The reality was only slightly more complicated than that. There were no caterers, lighting specialists, or production company. The theater offered a cash bar, and there was a merchandise table.
The biggest challenge was finding the right venue. Gold said the theater provided the audiovisual equipment as well as the couches, end tables, and rug that made up the living-room-like stage set.
To take advantage of the theater-in-the-round stage, the set rotated at a slow pace. Although this allowed fans the chance to face their favorite stars, it proved somewhat disorienting for the actors. “I feel like we’re at the Auto Show,” Easton joked.
The planning also required a major marketing effort to fill the chairs of the massive 2,800-seat theater. A sponsorship with Soap Opera Digest magazine was key to reaching fans, Gold said. He also advertised the event on ABC stations during the final episodes of the soap opera. Social media was another essential element to promoting the show. The event had its own Twitter feed and Facebook page, and the stars promoted the event to fans on their own accounts. Gold said he also reached out to the show’s fan clubs and to soap opera bloggers.
The show also drew fans of another cancelled ABC soap opera, All My Children, for whom Gold had already organized a fan fest, “A Tribute to Pine Valley,” which toured the Northeast and Midwest in December and January. Gold said he hopes the One Life to Live event kicks off a similar multicity farewell tour.
