John Waters' Baltimore: In Person, Online or on Broadway
4/28/2008 at 4:00 PM
Tags: John Waters, Baltimore, Tourism Board Travel, Travel Marketing (all tags)
Cry-Baby, The Musical
Last week's New Yorker wrote about the possible return of Baltimore as a popular city, or at least a destination, thanks to the commercial success of John Waters, who has sent his movie Hairspray to the Great White Way and then back into movie theaters.
Now Waters is doing the same thing for his cult movie Cry-Baby, which originally starred Johnny Depp and is about a local Baltimore gang, The Drapes.*
And naturally, the Cry-Baby Broadway musical has the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Bureau super excited about a boom in people wanting to take a trip to B'more. But will it happen?
The current slogan for the BACVB is "Baltimore: Get in on it." But the bureau is starting a new marketing campaign based off the musical Cry-Baby. There's a new ad that will read, "You've seen the musical, now visit the set."
And the BACVB will be highlighting certain city sights made famous by John Waters:
The "Cry-Baby" campaign will include a microsite on Baltimore.org, directing visitors to John Waters hot spots--"stores he likes, bars he frequents," [BACVB exec Sam] Rogers said.
One group the tourism board probably won't go after? Rabid fans of the just-ended series The Wire. One BACVB exec said, "That's not the true Baltimore; it's too gritty."
We recommend hitting up Baltimore in the summer, naturally, when the weather's hot and humid and the summertime crab fests are in full effect. Also worth a look in B'more is the Inner Harbor, the Washington Monument (which came before DC's) and the homes of same famous Americans like Edgar Allen Poe, Babe Ruth and Tom Clancy.
Not interested in making the trip to Baltimore? The Cry-Baby musical is now playing Tuesday-Sunday at the Marquis Theater on Broadway. Tickets start at $35.
*We're not sure we can forgive John Waters for doing this sort of sell-out stuff but the recent articles on him show us that he is still fucked up--as usual--even if that pencil-thin mustache he sports is indeed drawn on in a drugstore-brand eyeliner pencil.
Related Stories:
· Who ♥ Baltimore? [The New Yorker]
· Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association [Official Site]
· Cry-Baby on Broadway [Official Site]
· Tourism Board Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Eonline]
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