7/01/07 - The Enquirer - Huge venues are vanishing: "Live Nation, which posted more than $3.5 billion in revenues last year, bills itself as 'the world's largest live music company.' It owns or operates 131 venues. Increasingly, amphitheaters sitting mainly on interstate exits and beltways outside of cities, find themselves in areas that have become prime real estate. Live Nation is selling off amphitheaters where established stars such as Buffett and Chesney may be the only guaranteed sellouts.
Just last week, Live Nation ended a management deal with the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater near Kansas City, Mo., plunging that outdoor venue's future into uncertainty.
While it divests of amphitheaters and other aspects of its business - including its Broadway Across America series that comes to the Aronoff Center for the Arts - Live Nation is beefing up its live music promotion and focusing on smaller venues. The company recently acquired the House of Blues chain of 10 clubs for $350 million.
Smaller performing venues are more attractive to artists as well as presenters, says [Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of the concert trade magazine Pollstar], because all seats are reserved. In 1994, touring groups including the Rolling Stones shifted to 'tiered pricing,' charging a premium for the best seats. But in the amphitheater world, the largest capacity is the lawn, which are the cheapest tickets.
'The artists will tend to demand that the presenters pay them a lot for that lawn capacity, whether they sell it or not,' Bongiovanni says. 'But if you only have 6,000 reserved seats, it's a safer bet. And artists generally like to play venues they can fill. No one likes to play to an empty or half-empty facility.'"
Showing posts with label cincinnati. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cincinnati. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Cincinnati has a song
Having not heard this song, I don't know if it will capture the world's imagination. New York has a song (several actually), so do Chicago, San Franciscio, and others.
Denver doesn't have a song, but John Denver did "Rocky Mountain High," so that kinda captures it.
My guess is that songs about locations work best when they are written as love songs to the place, and if they capture a widely-agreed-upon image.
I lived in Yellow Springs, Ohio, quite awhile ago and visited Cincinnati a few times. What caught my attention was the Proctor and Gamble factory and the working class neighborhoods that surrounded it. It struck me as a blend of American values and European immigrant influences. There's probably a song in there.
The Cincinnati Post, 2/16/07 - Song sings Cincinnati's praises: "The Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber is again drawing on the vibrant music community to tout the area's arts and creative features, and take some playful shots at other cities as well.
The advocacy group has commissioned a Cincinnati-centric song, and this week is releasing, mostly through Internet distribution, the tune by local troubadour Jake Speed. 'All Roads Lead to Cincinnati' sings the praises of the region in a way designed to capture the attention of the highly sought young professionals demographic."
Cincinnati
tourism
economic development
Denver doesn't have a song, but John Denver did "Rocky Mountain High," so that kinda captures it.
My guess is that songs about locations work best when they are written as love songs to the place, and if they capture a widely-agreed-upon image.
I lived in Yellow Springs, Ohio, quite awhile ago and visited Cincinnati a few times. What caught my attention was the Proctor and Gamble factory and the working class neighborhoods that surrounded it. It struck me as a blend of American values and European immigrant influences. There's probably a song in there.
The Cincinnati Post, 2/16/07 - Song sings Cincinnati's praises: "The Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber is again drawing on the vibrant music community to tout the area's arts and creative features, and take some playful shots at other cities as well.
The advocacy group has commissioned a Cincinnati-centric song, and this week is releasing, mostly through Internet distribution, the tune by local troubadour Jake Speed. 'All Roads Lead to Cincinnati' sings the praises of the region in a way designed to capture the attention of the highly sought young professionals demographic."
Cincinnati
tourism
economic development
Monday, September 18, 2006
Learning from the MidPoint Music Festival
This is a very good article about the nuts and bolts of a music festival. The 9/17/06, Enquirer - MidPoint maestros committed
The MidPoint Music Festival in Cincinnati is five years old. It started "in 2002 with 150 bands playing in 13 venues to 10,000 people, and has grown to this year's total of 17 venues with 21 stages, hosting 280-plus bands playing to an expected 60,000."
It was started by Sean Rhiney and Bill Donabedian, who still run it on a volunteer basis, along with a staff of 13 other year-round volunteers (hundreds volunteer during the festival itself). Both have day jobs. Most of the year, festival planning only takes a few hours a week. For several months leading up to the festival, it becomes a full-time job in addition to their regular work.
Among the points in the article:
1. The festival has been able to run in one area, rather than all over the city, giving them a significant advantage over other music festivals around the country. However, venues disappear, forcing them to find alternatives. "'We've lost a venue or venues every year, so in some respects it's nothing new,' says Donabedian, as Rhiney chimes in to finish his thought ...
"'We've always had contingency plans. We've always had backup venues,' he says.
"'You're dealing with the bar business, which is not the most stable. You just kinda gotta roll with it.'"
2. The festival does not have a title sponsor because there haven't been offers big enough. It runs on a $100,000 budget with just $25,000 coming from sponsors. The rest comes from ticket sales.
3. The festival stays true to its area. "Brent Grulke, [SXSW's] creative director for music, says he's aware of MidPoint and praises its founders for sticking around past the critical five-year mark.
"'There are just mountains of festivals, and a lot of people try it because it looks easy, but anybody who actually does it finds out that it's quite difficult.
"'Particularly carving a niche. Every successful event is particular to a specific place and time, and necessitates that people recognize those qualities and promote them."
"'If people didn't want to come to Cincinnati or Austin, it would be almost impossible to do a festival because you have to depend on a viable local music scene with venues. There's no way to have a successful event that doesn't start with that. It clearly works in Cincinnati because there is a huge number of music fans who will go see talent and are educated, but I can't imagine to whose advantage it would be for SXSW to take over MidPoint.
"'When we do events, we want to run them. And that's the way it should be. They know Cincinnati and we don't.'"
4. They have found ways to keep costs down. "... the organizers increasingly delegate more duties to a back-end system that runs most of its operations, with Web-based applications that automatically deal with everything from musicians' submissions to judging, invitations, scheduling, and this year, creating bio pages for the event's panelists.
"By using existing venues, the pair has been able to circumvent the costs of paying police and EMTs to be on hand during their event, a bite that dealt a financial blow to this year's debut of the Desdemona Festival on the riverfront."
The MidPoint Music Festival in Cincinnati is five years old. It started "in 2002 with 150 bands playing in 13 venues to 10,000 people, and has grown to this year's total of 17 venues with 21 stages, hosting 280-plus bands playing to an expected 60,000."
It was started by Sean Rhiney and Bill Donabedian, who still run it on a volunteer basis, along with a staff of 13 other year-round volunteers (hundreds volunteer during the festival itself). Both have day jobs. Most of the year, festival planning only takes a few hours a week. For several months leading up to the festival, it becomes a full-time job in addition to their regular work.
Among the points in the article:
1. The festival has been able to run in one area, rather than all over the city, giving them a significant advantage over other music festivals around the country. However, venues disappear, forcing them to find alternatives. "'We've lost a venue or venues every year, so in some respects it's nothing new,' says Donabedian, as Rhiney chimes in to finish his thought ...
"'We've always had contingency plans. We've always had backup venues,' he says.
"'You're dealing with the bar business, which is not the most stable. You just kinda gotta roll with it.'"
2. The festival does not have a title sponsor because there haven't been offers big enough. It runs on a $100,000 budget with just $25,000 coming from sponsors. The rest comes from ticket sales.
3. The festival stays true to its area. "Brent Grulke, [SXSW's] creative director for music, says he's aware of MidPoint and praises its founders for sticking around past the critical five-year mark.
"'There are just mountains of festivals, and a lot of people try it because it looks easy, but anybody who actually does it finds out that it's quite difficult.
"'Particularly carving a niche. Every successful event is particular to a specific place and time, and necessitates that people recognize those qualities and promote them."
"'If people didn't want to come to Cincinnati or Austin, it would be almost impossible to do a festival because you have to depend on a viable local music scene with venues. There's no way to have a successful event that doesn't start with that. It clearly works in Cincinnati because there is a huge number of music fans who will go see talent and are educated, but I can't imagine to whose advantage it would be for SXSW to take over MidPoint.
"'When we do events, we want to run them. And that's the way it should be. They know Cincinnati and we don't.'"
4. They have found ways to keep costs down. "... the organizers increasingly delegate more duties to a back-end system that runs most of its operations, with Web-based applications that automatically deal with everything from musicians' submissions to judging, invitations, scheduling, and this year, creating bio pages for the event's panelists.
"By using existing venues, the pair has been able to circumvent the costs of paying police and EMTs to be on hand during their event, a bite that dealt a financial blow to this year's debut of the Desdemona Festival on the riverfront."
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