A short history of the Fan Club

The Outlandos Fan Club was originally formed back in April 1979 shortly after The Police started their climb to success, but the story actually started a little earlier than that. In 1978, as 'Roxanne' started to make it's impression on the airwaves, fan mail started arriving at the offices of A&M records and they assigned a young lady named Monique to deal with it. The increasing volume though soon meant that this became a mammoth task and fans started to complain that they were not getting answers to their letters. Rather than have dissatisfied fans the record company solved their problem in the most convenient manner - by bundling it all up into plastic sacks and handing the sacks to Kim Turner, The Police's co-manager. Kim then did what most managers do. He delegated: took it to Dee, tipped it all out on the floor and suggested that it be dealt with "pronto"!

Dee set about the challenge with enthusiasm and largely by default found herself in charge of running the new fan club. One of her first tasks was the need to register the fan club and for this she needed a name. "Police" was rejected by Companies House as HM Constabulary had got there first. Sting, Stewart, Andy and Miles put their heads together and decided to call the fan club 'Outlandos' as this was part of the title of their first album, and also later became the title of the charity they founded to benefit young musicians.

The first six months were extremely hectic with thousands applying for membership all eager to learn more about The Police. A guy called Paul Carter (not ‘that’ Paul Carter) was working on the office switchboard at the time and being a fan of The Police he volunteered to help out by making personal replies to the thousands of letters that arrived which allowed Dee time to administer the running of the club. Paul eventually moved to another department but still assisted with the fan club.

Back in 1979, equipment was pretty unsophisticated. Newsletters had to be typed on manual typewriters then run off at a local printer and folded by hand into A5 booklets. Even the stamps had to be individually licked and stuck on the envelopes before they were taken down to Westbourne Grove Post office where the staff would audibly groan every time Dee or Paul entered with their latest batch of replies. Those first newsletters comprised of just a couple of photocopied sheets of A4 paper crammed with bits of news, information and clippings but it soon settled into the regular A5 newsletter format, which came out in quarterly issues each year (including a Christmas Card).

Despite the growing size of the fan club and the success of the band, one of the best memories of those days was the friendly personal contact the fan club had with the band. It seemed that everyday one of them would be in the office to see Miles or just hang out. They all lived close by and Sting would occasionally cycle along from his flat in Bayswater with young Joe (yes, Joe from Fiction Plane!) sitting on a seat on his crossbar. It was quite sad when their faces became so well known that it was no longer comfortable for them to stroll along the streets incognito and drop in for a while.

In early 1980 another club member, Neil Watson, used to come into the office in his free time and helped out with merchandising and eventually was put on the staff for a short period to help Dee and Paul until he moved to a recording studio within the company. In December 1981 the fan club had its first ‘members only’ show at the in-famous London venue The Marquee.

In the summer of 1983, the BBC held a national poll to find the best music fan club and, excitingly for everyone concerned, Outlandos topped the poll! The subsequent publicity meant that even more people wanted to join. This coincided with the release of the 'Synchronicity' album so you can imagine how busy things had become. A group of girls turned up at the Fan Club office one afternoon and Dee recognised them as regulars from the front row at Police concerts. Dee was frantically packing newsletters into envelopes and the girls willingly sat on the office floor helping her out. The next day two returned, and again the day after that... And that is how Tina and Sally-Ann came to join the fan club staff in the winter of 1983 as the UK 'Synchronicity' tour took to the road. Sally-Ann joined the merchandising section of the company and Tina became Dee's 'right-hand' person. At this time the offices were situated in the ‘trendy’ London district of Notting Hill and adjacent to the offices was a fair size shop, where fans could pick-up all the latest Police merchandise. At the weekend it would transform into a Fan Club meeting place, fans would come from far and wide to chat and swap stories about their favourite band, whilst Tina and Sally-Ann provided the tea and biscuits!

After The Police’s ‘Synchronicity’ tour finished the fan club still brought members news of the activities of all three members but gradually as his solo career blossomed the focus concentrated more on Sting although the club retained the ‘Outlandos’ name. Dee and Tina remained at the helm as Sting's solo career went from strength to strength and continued to produce the quarterly newsletter - the highlights of which were invariably the reports and photographs that had been submitted by club members. In between tours, preparing newsletters and organising tickets for fans high spots for both Dee and Tina during this time were undoubtedly the invitations they received to Sting's 40th birthday celebrations at the Hollywood Bowl and to Sting and Trudie's wedding at Lake House.

In 1997, Dee finally tired of the daily commute from the South Coast to London and handed over the fan club reigns to Tina. The previous year, two fan club members - Dave and Wendy - (who had joined the fan club back in 1982) had bought their first computer. They submitted a review of the 'All This Time' CDROM for the newsletter and over the next few years became regular contributors to the newsletter which they started to typeset for Tina. This meant that the newsletter was eventually able to move to higher quality glossy printed booklets. Around this time this new-fangled thing called the ‘internet’ was growing rapidly and although there were few Sting websites to be found the best was easily 'Fields of Gold' which was designed by club member Martin Nickel. When Martin eventually closed his site he provided support, patience and encouragement to Dave and Wendy who were taking their first steps building their own Sting website.

Starting from a couple of dodgy looking pages that focused on a fan club event that took place at Sting's brother's bar 'Dunes' in 1996, 'Stingchronicity' grew into a site of several thousand pages that was even listed in Microsoft Encarta as 'the best Sting internet site'! At this time Sting did not have an official website but Tina was able to use the site as a means of getting official news out to fans quickly and so in this way it effectively became almost a semi ‘official’ Sting website. At the same time, the increasing take up of email meant that Tina was also able to establish an e-mail list where she could quickly get important news out to members. The writing on the wall was starting to appear for the printed newsletter, which by its very nature, could not compete in terms of informing members of events quickly.

In 1999, a Sting web site was set up during the ‘Brand New Day’ tour which was sponsored by Compaq, and at the end of that tour Sting and his management decided it was time for the first 'proper' official Sting site to launch. Dave and Wendy offered all the content from their website to Sting's management for them to use on the new Sting.com site, but management instead surprised them by inviting them to come on board and help run the new official website which they did in summer 2001.

Sting.com went through a major change in 2003 ahead of the release of the 'Sacred Love' album when it was decided to make the fan club an online club. Technology had moved at such a pace that it was now possible to do things undreamed of even ten years ago, let alone back in the late '70s. With Ultrastar, it was possible to offer members a whole new experience such as providing ticket presales for concerts, running communities where fans could talk in real-time or near real-time to each other, and putting people on the road with Sting filming and recording him on tour. Even something as simple as being able to accept membership fees online meant that access to the fan club was now easily accessible to a much wider audience and consequently membership numbers skyrocketed, surpassing even those heady days back when The Police seemed to be topping the charts every other week. Today, the whole fan club experience is now much more vivid and exciting - and immediate. Video, photographs and reviews can be made available and shared with club members within hours of shows taking place, and although many still miss the familiar newsletter dropping through their letterbox the ever decreasing number of fans that did not have access to the internet meant that it was unviable to continue producing a quarterly newsletter and after 26 years, the newsletter has now ceased.

Over the years we have received countless letters, stories, reviews, photos and articles from you related to your exploits following Sting and The Police which have been used in newsletters or on the website. Some of you saw The Police play their first dates, some have travelled around the world several times to see Sting play, some of you are happy catching Sting once each tour and others are yet to see Sting perform in concert. Whatever category you fall into it is our aim to provide a fan club from which everyone gets pleasure from their membership. The great enthusiasm of the membership has always been the lifeblood of the fan club and you can be assured that that enthusiasm has been shared by everyone that has worked for the club since that day Kim Turner wandered into the office with several sacks of fan mail over twenty six years ago.

Tina, Dave & Wendy
August 2005