L.A. residents to face advertising glut for Tut show: wide campaign ready to roll out for exhibit.

Opening day for King Tut's Los Angeles showing isn't until June 16, but the ancient pharaoh has already received modern-day celebrity treatment--a fully loaded entourage to help kick off his grand entrance.

Tut's team of publicists and managers are gearing up for a promotional rollout that will include radio, print, billboard, television, direct mail, retail tie-ins and electronic marketing.

Last week, a teaser-like promotional flier was stuffed into Sunday editions of the Los Angeles Times.

"It is a merging of art and entertainment," said David Stamper, an executive vice president in the Los Angeles office of Chicago-based GolinHarris International, a public relations firm working on the rollout. "When you see these items, they are so incredible and so beautiful, that really all you have to do is to shine a spotlight on them."

The show, which will feature the artifacts of King Tutankhamen, has become controversial in museum circles because of the financial demands by the government of Egypt and its commercial partners. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which featured the King Tut exhibit in 1978 during its first tour, turned it down this time, as did other museums around the country.

The exhibit is being managed by several organizations that include Anschutz Entertainment Group, which operates Staples Center and other sports and entertainment venues, and Arts and Exhibits International, a Cleveland-based marketing concern that's behind the exhibition "Diana--A Celebration," which commemorates the late Princess of Wales.

"There is collaboration between the for-profit and the non-profit entities and each brings their own expertise to the table." said John Norman, president of Arts and Exhibits International.

Norman, who claims that the marketing campaign will be a "multi-million dollar" effort, said print ads for the exhibit are mostly finalized and will feature the face of King Tut, which he called "the brand image." Television and radio ads are still in the works, and corporate sponsorships will be announced within the next few weeks.

Stamper explained that because of the enormity of exhibits like King Tut, museums need logistical support. "They become almost like a touring Broadway show," he said. "It becomes difficult for any particular venue to put on a tour of this type."

It's not just the exhibit's primary organizers that will be pushing the exhibit.

Locally, LA Inc., formerly the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, is preparing its own marketing campaign that builds on the Tut exhibit to promote the city's other cultural institutions. They're already running ads in Automobile Association of America magazines.

"We are using the King Tut exhibit as the lead, but we are saying that these are the other amazing things that you can do when you are in Los Angeles," said Michael McDowell, senior director of cultural tourism for LA Inc.

For all the planned marketing, McDowell emphasized that word-of-mouth remains key. "We need to get Angelenos excited so they tell their friends and families about it to create a buzz," he said.

An estimated 50,000 museum members have already bought tickets. Prices are $20.50 for members and from $25 to $30 for nonmembers, depending on the day. Tickets will not go on sale to non-members until March.

McDowell said the museum expects about 1 million people to attend the LACMA show--topping the Van Gogh exhibit in 1998-99 that brought 821,000 during a 17-week run. Turnout is expected to be high, Stamper said, 2because Los Angeles is the first venue for the exhibit and because King Tut's artifacts may never come to the United States again.

"We want to make sure that the whole region knows about it, and we feel that everybody will make a special trip for it," said Norman,

The first tour of King Tut's artifacts, which also had a run at LACMA, is widely considered to be the first museum mega-event. It generated eight million visitors nationwide. Since then, such museum road shows have become commonplace--an opportunity for the various venues to generate new members and revenue.

"The advertising and marketing has changed dramatically since then," Norman said, pointing to a Web site, kingtut.org, that he said gets about 500,000 hits daily.

After the exhibit closes in Los Angeles on Nov. 15, it heads to the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in December and the Field Museum in Chicago in May 2006.

After a Dec. 1 press conference to announce the exhibit, Stamper said museumgoers in Fort Lauderdale inquired about tickets, even though they won't go on sale until next December.