The concept of a bilingual (Spanish/English) board game was initialy pitched in 1999 to the A/R Department of Estefan Enterprise, Inc This concept incorporated Latin/Crossover music with a celebrity theme to transpire in Miami, Florida. This game included celebrity involvement and overview. It was first introduced as "So-Be" the Game! And later updated to "Miami Beach", the Game! We were instructed to contact the Artist and Repertoire Director of Estefan Enterprise, Inc, Mr. Jairo Martinez. Mr. Martinez immediately classified our concept as "excellent" and commenced to communicate our messages, information, and project ideas to Mr. Emilio Estefan for a period of 1-1 1/2 years. We were advised that Mr. Estefan "like the idea". Was interested, and was moving to do something with it, but that the timing overlapped with previous projects.
During that timeframe, we were instructed to travel numerous trips back and forth from New Jersey to Miami for appointments and meetings with the A/R Department, which were to lead to a personal conference, one-on-one, with Mr. Estefan for discussion of production.in the Spring of we decided to incorporate the board game into an internet based game to target the Latino/Anglo market. The A/R Director was enthusiastic so we additionally moved towards creating a reality show wih this theme and concept. The objective was to BEGIN with a reality show promoting the other avenues to later include bringing both a board game and an interactive web game.
The reality show would be based on Latin/Crossover music promoting the Hispanic artists and culture to the Anglo-Saxon market and vise versa. The show was first to be aired for Spanish programming and then through the Crossover music appeal and its artists, bring the show mainstream to the major networks.
We had now developed a trusting relationship with the A/R Director who continued to promise the meeting with Mr. Estefan. Subsequently, the A/R Director went on to pursue other professional interests but still maintained contact with us by phone and told us he was communicating with Mr. Estefan on our behalf. The now former A/R Director then advised us to "re-pitch" our project and concept to other individuals at Estefan Enterprises to help secure the meeting with Mr. Estefan.
He told us not to worry that we had "our foot in the door" and had a history with the A/R Department.
Thereafter, in appoximately 2001 we sent the President Of Estefan Enterprises, Mr. Frank Amadeo an introduction letter and photo chronology packet to validate our relationship with the A/R Department. We requested a courtesy acknowledgement to confirm that he had received the packet. We were never contacted by Mr. Amadeo, but instead he contacted the former A/R Director advising him that he had received our packet. A/R told us of this in a phone conversation a week later.
The A/R Director then suggested we "restart" the process instructing us to contact Ms. Laura Mejia, Media Relations which we did. Ms. Mejia (via emails) requested more information since she was not privy to our discussions with A/R the past several years. Ms. Mejia was faxed information and then commenced to work on getting us the promised meeting with Mr. Estefan.
After months of back and forth (calls and emails) Ms. Mejia mentioned that she had spoken to Mr. Estefan about our situation but that he had not responded. She apologized for not being able to help us and then suggested that we try going through Mr. Estefan's assistant, Janet De Armas and provided us with her email.
We decided to take a few days off for a much needed break.
While on the net, by coincidence, we "stumbled" upon a press release reference to the forming of Estefan/Burnett Entertainment to develop TV, Internet, and wireless programming that would target English speaking Hispanics while also appealing to Anglo viewers.
Upon contacting Ms De Armas we were once again asked to submit information on the project and the purpose of meeting with Mr. Estefan.
In June Ms.De Armas requested additional information (via email) so that she could present it to Mr. Estefan upon his return. She stated that Mr. Estefan would be available for the meeting August 13th and needed the required information to start working on setting up the meeting. After all these years we thought God had finally answered our prayers!
No meeting in August, it is now November and Ms De Armas tells us that she has informed Mr. Estefan about our situation but he has asked her to block his agenda. That he could not overextend himself at this time and there is nothing she could do to make the meeting happen any time soon (we were suppose to meet in August, right?). Ms.De Armas showed some concern for the fact that the A/R Department had left us "hanging for some time", and we had dealt with another department to no avail, but said she was just following instructions. She did say that as soon as there was a window of opportunity she would contact us and if we were still interested in meeting with Mr. Estefan she would set a date.
By now, we had waited YEARS for the meeting so yes, we would be interested. We suggested sending Ms De Armas a complete package so that Mr. Estefan could review everything we had been doing (as advised by A/R) all these years in anticipation of the meeting.networking at entertainment events, introducing ourselves to many artists from Latin/Crossover music, as well as artists from other music sectors, and the sports arena. She agreed to accept the package and told us she would have it dropped off at Mr. Estefan's Star Island resisdence so that he could review it upon his return to Miami December 15.
January 8 in an email Ms De Armas states that she had not yet received our package to Mr. Estefan. She cannot even commit to a simple conference call between us and Mr. Estefan to discuss a project he has yet to review. We didn't quite understand since all we heard from the beginning is that Mr. Estefan liked our project and concept. She did further state that it was not her intention to have us wait (wish we would have been told that years ago) and suggested we present it to other interested parties. This was not a very good option as we had already spent many years waiting to present it to Mr. Estefan
We made other attempts to schedule this meeting with Mr. Estefan but the company response has been negative.in April it would have been eight years that we dedicated to this.including hundreds of hours creating presentations for our project that has been specifically brought to the attention of Estefan Enterprises, Inc. Dating back to 1999.
Eight years of scheduling meetings, phone conferences, travel just to meet with Emilio Estefan for a few minutes.
And for the struggle, time, effort, and years of sacrifice all we have gotton from this company is broken promise after broken promise.
"Hard times and bubble gum"
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