With a crowd of more than 100 in attendance, TouchTunes senior VP of sales, Jamie Sura, accepted the Amusement and Music Owners Assn. of New York’s Man of the Year Award at their annual gala in May. A video of the evening’s highlights has just been released by the association.
AMOA-NY President Ken Goldberg (left) with help from AMOA-NY VP Joe Bossolina (right) make their gala presentations to recording legend Tommy James and TouchTunes SVP-Sales Jamie Sura.
“Both Charles Goldstuck and I joined TouchTunes at the same time, 10 years ago this week,” said Sura, addressing the attendees and standing beside Goldstuck, representing the TouchTunes board, AMOA-NY president Ken Goldberg of Emerson Amusement and AMOA-NY vice president Joe Bossolina of McGee Amusement. “I take great pride in how I have been able to contribute to TouchTunes’ leadership position in the industry.”
Arch competitors Charles Goldstuck (left) of TouchTunes, and Michael Maas, CEO of AMI Entertainment/Rowe, coming together for “a common cause,” AMOA-NY.
He continued: “The jukebox industry is special. There is a unique sense of family and an element of personal relationship with our customers that you just don’t see in other industries. I have learned how whether it is manufacturers and service providers like TouchTunes, or operators or locations – all of our interests are aligned. So, if all of us even as competitors are committed to innovation and creativity, everybody benefits. This dynamic motivates the end user consumer to want to play our jukeboxes more.”
Another highlight of the annual event was the presentation of the association’s Jukebox Artist of the Year Award. The honors for 2019 went to Tommy James & The Shondells. James, who was on hand to accept the award, has sold more than 100 million records in his career, and has earned 23 gold singles and nine platinum albums. AMOA-NY’s Danny Frank said James, like other award recipients, stayed for the whole evening, meeting and taking pictures with those in attendance.
Music icon Tommy James, with TouchTunes SVP-Sales Jamie Sura (left) and Jamie’s predecessor, Phil Cohn (right), a past AMOA-NY “Man of the Year,” now SVP-Sales at Samsung.
That’s AMOA-NY’s “Jukebox Artist of the Year” Tommy James and his manager, Carol Ross, conversing with Betson Distributors CEO Robert Geschine and Betson VP-Finance Kevin Fritz.
