Thomas & Friends show catch you by surprise? You're not alone

There's been a lot of children's entertainment passing through Yakima lately.

In the 14 months since Disney On Ice skated through the Yakima Valley SunDome, the city has hosted two other national tours, The Backyardigans Live! and Sesame Street Live!

Now, the all-new family musical Thomas & Friends Live! On Stage: "A Circus Comes To Town" is scheduled to pull into the station at the Capitol Theatre on Feb. 20.

You hadn't heard? Indeed, there's been a curious lack of publicity about this show, produced by HIT Entertainment and AEG ThemeSTAR.

Less than two weeks before Thomas & Friends were set to perform, there had been no advertising. No press releases. No chatter on local mommy e-networks, though the Thomas & Friends television program and toys are wildly popular among the preschool set.

"Their marketing department is doing nothing, and I don't understand it," Gay Parker, general manager of the Capitol, said this week.

Like most events at the downtown theater, the Thomas show is essentially a rental. Each show's production company leases the space and is responsible for handling its own publicity.

That role falls to Tim Martinez, the show's Stockton, Calif.-based regional publicist. During a telephone interview Tuesday, Martinez indicated he's had communication problems regarding local publicity but wouldn't point fingers.

"We ran into some situations," Martinez said. "It's just been one thing after another."

Ideally, Martinez would start promoting a show at least three weeks out. With 10 days to go, he'd just lined up last-minute promotion deals with local TV and radio stations.

"I'm optimistic that we can get some folks to attend the show," he said, noting that more than 300 tickets had already been sold without any advertising.

However, filling the Capitol's 1,500 seats is not necessarily a shoo-in. When the Backyardigans tour booked the theater for two performances in October, fewer than half the seats were sold for each show, Parker said.

Even the Capitol Kids children's theater series, a staple field trip for local elementary school students, has failed to appeal to evening audiences.

Still, Greg Lybeck, assistant general manager for the SunDome, sees a lot of promise in the Yakima family market. Earlier this week, the SunDome announced it has booked six performances of "Walking With Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular" in April.

Also at the SunDome, the Harlem Globetrotters will put their spin on family entertainment and basketball on Feb. 23.

"A lot of the stuff that we're doing right now, we're having success," said Lybeck. "As long as we keep having success, we're going to have a variation of more and different shows."

Parker would like that for the Capitol, too.

"We always want to set everybody up to succeed," she said.

Yet she and Lybeck agree that production companies -- not venues -- should take the lead when it comes to managing publicity for their shows.

"You have to let them announce it on their terms," Lybeck said.