23
Oct
2001
Concert promoters prefer venues that are willing to help market a show, or waive certain costs. These arenas are known to be "cooperative."
But there's something else that's more important.
"You have to be able to sell tickets," said Jade Nielsen, who runs Jade Productions in Bismarck, North Dakota.
That didn't happen with a Nielsen-booked Willie Nelson show slated for the 2,400-seat Adler Theatre on October 10, with ticket prices ranging from $25 to $45 for a chance to see an icon of American music. According to Adler Marketing Director Heather Kearns, sales for the show had not been bad - at least 600 tickets.
But they didn't compare to sales in other markets, said Nielsen, who also booked shows in Fargo, North Dakota, and Sioux City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. So when health issues forced schedulers to thin out Nelson's tour dates, the Quad Cities concert got lopped off. "Davenport did 50 percent of the sales the on-sale weekend as Cedar Rapids," Nielsen said. "I don't see any reason for that, considering your market is two or three times larger. ... It doesn't make any sense to me."
"That's what we're struggling with," Kearns said.
The Quad Cities area is fickle when it comes to musical concerts. While we do get plenty of visits from the aging-rocker set - Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Sting, Neil Diamond, Ozzy Osbourne, and Aerosmith are all on The MARK's 2001 roster - many concerts that appeal to a younger generation seem to pass us by. Tool played a sold-out show in Cedar Rapids on Saturday, and the list of acts that have come to nearby venues but skipped the Quad Cities is impressive both in stylistic range and artistic quality: Keb' Mo', Ben Harper, Medeski Martin & Wood, Slipknot, and Ani DiFranco, just to name some that passed through Iowa this summer. This doesn't even include the myriad smaller, interesting artists who played venues such as CSPS in Cedar Rapids and Gabe's Oasis in Iowa City but bypassed this metropolitan area.
And some of the concerts with more mainstream appeal that have been booked here were canceled, including Nelson at the Adler and Bon Jovi at The MARK.
As a result, probably the hippest show that made its way to the Quad Cities this year has been The Black Crowes at the Adler earlier this month.
All in all, blame for a flaccid concert scene falls on a lot of parties: the venues and radio stations for not being adventurous in their programming, promoters for bypassing the area, audiences for being slow to buy tickets, and artists for demanding guarantees that put tickets out of the price range of many fans.
Anything Goes?
There's no reason the Quad Cities shouldn't be thriving and vital when it comes to concerts, according to Steve Hyman, the executive director of The MARK of the Quad Cities.
"You can take a marginal show and fill 75 to 80 percent of the house if you package it right," Hyman said. "There really isn't anything that can't play in the Quad Cities."
Hyman can even explain why some recent or planned shows at the 12,000-seat MARK haven't sold well. Janet Jackson had relatively poor ticket sales (with several thousand empty seats) because it was scheduled for a date three days before a show by Eric Clapton, which sold out.
And the dance extravaganza Burn the Floor, slated for November 7 but cancelled, "is not doing well" around the country, he said. "It has to do with trying to define the product."
The Quad Cities market is attractive for many reasons, Hyman explained: It's a convenient, on-the-way stop for many tours, there's no "price resistance," and tickets sell here.
"Many places, you get up to $60 to $70, you just shut down," Hyman said. He added that cities such a Peoria have this problem, and "they don't get the shows."
In the Quad Cities, though, The MARK has generally had little trouble selling $60-plus tickets. Top prices for Clapton, Aerosmith, and Jackson were either $75 or $77.50.
The high ticket prices are a function of performer guarantees. A few years ago, top-tier acts could be had for $250,000 a show; most now command between $350,000 and $500,000 a night. For a sellout at The MARK, the portion of the ticket price simply covering the artist guarantee will be between $29 and $42; for a show that sells 9,000 tickets, it jumps to between $38 and $56.
When asked at what level The MARK might encounter price resistance, Hyman replied, "I don't know. What do you think people would pay for a Beatles reunion?" (He suggested Julian Lennon to take his father's place.) U2 and REM might command ticket prices upwards of $90 in the Quad Cities, he said.
"You don't stick a magic figure on there and hope people pay it," said Bill Douglas, who books bands for the Rock Island Brewing Company. "There are expenses."
Without any known price ceiling, the Quad Cities could in theory support virtually any artist, from those who play small clubs to those who pack arenas. The MARK handles the bigger names, while the Adler covers acts the next step down. "We have two facilities that cover 98 percent of the [concert] market," Hyman said.
So why do so many tours take a pass on the Quad Cities?
Part of the answer is scheduling. Much would have been forgiven by music fans had the art-metal masters Tools stopped at The MARK instead of or in addition to the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids.
It could have happened, said Hyman, except for a scheduling conflict. "Tool wanted to come in here this week," he said, referring to October 17 or 18. But Billy Graham's Celebration 2001 had already booked those dates.
"The building does 180 to 200 events a year," Hyman said. "We're really pretty busy. Some of the newer rock bands think, 'It's July. Let's go on tour in August.' ... Most of the time, I have a conflict."
Another issue might be the cost of marketing a show, Nielsen said. A market such as Cedar Rapids has one major print outlet, but the Quad Cities area has three daily newspapers as well as multiple weeklies. Advertising gets expensive, and not doing enough of it might lead to poor ticket sales.
Performers also bear some of the burden for concert sales, Hyman noted. Love him or loathe him, Neil Diamond made all the right public-relations stops in promoting his new album, and the result has been a popular tour. "He was so visible on TV and in newsprint," Hyman said.
And of course, Hyman's claim to the contrary, some types of music just sell better than others in the market. "Middle of the road" classic-rock and adult-contemporary performers do very well, Hyman said, which might explain the recent slate of Diamond, Stewart, Clapton, Sting, and Aerosmith. "Country has always done well," he added, "but country's in a bit of a recession right now."
Beyond those formats, "metal does excellent," Hyman said, adding that headbangers are also "probably one of the easiest crowds to manage." (And the worst? Ozzy Osbourne fans, according to Hyman.)
Blues and rock have sold well at The Adler, Kearns said. Successful concerts at the theatre in recent years include Johnny Lang, B.B. King, Widespread Panic, and Poison, she said. Yet the theatre's musical lineup for the rest of the year is dominated by tried-and-true country, with Diamond Rio on November 7, Sawyer Brown on November 23, and the Oak Ridge Boys on December 9.
Kearns wondered whether promoters shy away from this market because of its spotty history with some types of concerts. "We just don't have a proven track record," she said.
Concerts cancelled because of poor ticket sales certainly don't help matters any, and neither does an artist slate that rarely moves off the double yellow line. If, as Hyman suggests, the Quad Cities can support virtually any concert, the play-it-safe scheduling isn't providing the opportunity to prove it.
Radio Killed the Interesting Music
A self-fulfilling prophecy might be at work, as well. Nielsen said one of the first things he does when he's thinking of booking a concert is research a community - figuring out whether there's enough interest for a show and what ticket prices the area might support.
Much of that research is done by talking to programmers at local radio stations, Nielsen said.
And on the Quad Cities radio dial, that's a problem, said Douglas, who in addition to booking bands for RIBCO plays in the popular power-pop outfit Einstein's Sister.
Generating excitement about a concert or simply spreading the word necessitates radio support, but for artists outside the mainstream, there aren't any commercial outlets in the Quad Cities. While this certainly applies to emerging artists that might play RIBCO, it would also be true for respected but less-well-known musicians, such as Keb' Mo' and Ben Harper.
"You need to have radio and print media on board" for those types of artists, Douglas said. "Otherwise, you're just preaching to the converted."
But getting radio support "is getting more challenging as time goes on," Douglas said.
"We get more than adequate support from radio," countered Kearns, but it's important to note that the Adler tends to bring in acts whose music fits nicely in existing Quad City formats.
That's not true for popular alternative acts and the stations of the two major radio players in the area, the Quad City Radio Group and Cumulus Communications. "Radio tends to have a more singular voice based on the programming consultants," Douglas said.
Alternative artists might get played on university-based stations such as KALA and KUNI, but those have relatively limited audiences.
Acts that are popular with college audiences might play well in the Quad Cities, Douglas said, but corporate radio stations won't put them on their playlists. "You can't just take a record into a radio station and say, 'This is good. They're coming to town,'" Douglas said. "They're not even getting played. They're not getting the shrink-wrap broken."
He added that some bands that were interested in playing at RIBCO backed out because they knew they wouldn't get any radio support here.
Certainly, many music lovers are bypassing radio altogether now, and a lot of new sources of music provide alternative artists some of the exposure they need to break through.
Douglas noted that some local and off-the-beaten-path bands might have more luck getting on the playlist of a nationwide digital-cable music station than on the local FM dial. "There was one weekend, I heard us four times in two days," Douglas said of Einstein's Sister on digital cable. "I'm not aware of any airplay [on a commercial radio station in the Quad Cities] for anything off the last record. ... It just doesn't fit the programming."
Yet a lack of airplay doesn't translate into a lack of an audience. "We have five colleges here," Kearns noted.
And there have been examples of alternative acts doing very well in the Quad Cities. Widespread Panic sold out the Adler Theatre in less than an hour. The jam band the Big Wu was a big draw for RIBCO, even without radio support, because of a loyal fan base and savvy Internet marketing. "It was their second time in the marketplace ... and we brought them in not knowing how they would do," Douglas said. "We had a line out the door to get into the club. ... Marketing plays a big role."
But it's not just up to the bands. Venues and promoters need to be less staid in programming, and fans need to buy tickets. Otherwise, it's just a never-ending cycle.
That didn't happen with a Nielsen-booked Willie Nelson show slated for the 2,400-seat Adler Theatre on October 10, with ticket prices ranging from $25 to $45 for a chance to see an icon of American music. According to Adler Marketing Director Heather Kearns, sales for the show had not been bad - at least 600 tickets.
But they didn't compare to sales in other markets, said Nielsen, who also booked shows in Fargo, North Dakota, and Sioux City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. So when health issues forced schedulers to thin out Nelson's tour dates, the Quad Cities concert got lopped off. "Davenport did 50 percent of the sales the on-sale weekend as Cedar Rapids," Nielsen said. "I don't see any reason for that, considering your market is two or three times larger. ... It doesn't make any sense to me."
"That's what we're struggling with," Kearns said.
The Quad Cities area is fickle when it comes to musical concerts. While we do get plenty of visits from the aging-rocker set - Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Sting, Neil Diamond, Ozzy Osbourne, and Aerosmith are all on The MARK's 2001 roster - many concerts that appeal to a younger generation seem to pass us by. Tool played a sold-out show in Cedar Rapids on Saturday, and the list of acts that have come to nearby venues but skipped the Quad Cities is impressive both in stylistic range and artistic quality: Keb' Mo', Ben Harper, Medeski Martin & Wood, Slipknot, and Ani DiFranco, just to name some that passed through Iowa this summer. This doesn't even include the myriad smaller, interesting artists who played venues such as CSPS in Cedar Rapids and Gabe's Oasis in Iowa City but bypassed this metropolitan area.
And some of the concerts with more mainstream appeal that have been booked here were canceled, including Nelson at the Adler and Bon Jovi at The MARK.
As a result, probably the hippest show that made its way to the Quad Cities this year has been The Black Crowes at the Adler earlier this month.
All in all, blame for a flaccid concert scene falls on a lot of parties: the venues and radio stations for not being adventurous in their programming, promoters for bypassing the area, audiences for being slow to buy tickets, and artists for demanding guarantees that put tickets out of the price range of many fans.
Anything Goes?
There's no reason the Quad Cities shouldn't be thriving and vital when it comes to concerts, according to Steve Hyman, the executive director of The MARK of the Quad Cities.
"You can take a marginal show and fill 75 to 80 percent of the house if you package it right," Hyman said. "There really isn't anything that can't play in the Quad Cities."
Hyman can even explain why some recent or planned shows at the 12,000-seat MARK haven't sold well. Janet Jackson had relatively poor ticket sales (with several thousand empty seats) because it was scheduled for a date three days before a show by Eric Clapton, which sold out.
And the dance extravaganza Burn the Floor, slated for November 7 but cancelled, "is not doing well" around the country, he said. "It has to do with trying to define the product."
The Quad Cities market is attractive for many reasons, Hyman explained: It's a convenient, on-the-way stop for many tours, there's no "price resistance," and tickets sell here.
"Many places, you get up to $60 to $70, you just shut down," Hyman said. He added that cities such a Peoria have this problem, and "they don't get the shows."
In the Quad Cities, though, The MARK has generally had little trouble selling $60-plus tickets. Top prices for Clapton, Aerosmith, and Jackson were either $75 or $77.50.
The high ticket prices are a function of performer guarantees. A few years ago, top-tier acts could be had for $250,000 a show; most now command between $350,000 and $500,000 a night. For a sellout at The MARK, the portion of the ticket price simply covering the artist guarantee will be between $29 and $42; for a show that sells 9,000 tickets, it jumps to between $38 and $56.
When asked at what level The MARK might encounter price resistance, Hyman replied, "I don't know. What do you think people would pay for a Beatles reunion?" (He suggested Julian Lennon to take his father's place.) U2 and REM might command ticket prices upwards of $90 in the Quad Cities, he said.
"You don't stick a magic figure on there and hope people pay it," said Bill Douglas, who books bands for the Rock Island Brewing Company. "There are expenses."
Without any known price ceiling, the Quad Cities could in theory support virtually any artist, from those who play small clubs to those who pack arenas. The MARK handles the bigger names, while the Adler covers acts the next step down. "We have two facilities that cover 98 percent of the [concert] market," Hyman said.
So why do so many tours take a pass on the Quad Cities?
Part of the answer is scheduling. Much would have been forgiven by music fans had the art-metal masters Tools stopped at The MARK instead of or in addition to the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids.
It could have happened, said Hyman, except for a scheduling conflict. "Tool wanted to come in here this week," he said, referring to October 17 or 18. But Billy Graham's Celebration 2001 had already booked those dates.
"The building does 180 to 200 events a year," Hyman said. "We're really pretty busy. Some of the newer rock bands think, 'It's July. Let's go on tour in August.' ... Most of the time, I have a conflict."
Another issue might be the cost of marketing a show, Nielsen said. A market such as Cedar Rapids has one major print outlet, but the Quad Cities area has three daily newspapers as well as multiple weeklies. Advertising gets expensive, and not doing enough of it might lead to poor ticket sales.
Performers also bear some of the burden for concert sales, Hyman noted. Love him or loathe him, Neil Diamond made all the right public-relations stops in promoting his new album, and the result has been a popular tour. "He was so visible on TV and in newsprint," Hyman said.
And of course, Hyman's claim to the contrary, some types of music just sell better than others in the market. "Middle of the road" classic-rock and adult-contemporary performers do very well, Hyman said, which might explain the recent slate of Diamond, Stewart, Clapton, Sting, and Aerosmith. "Country has always done well," he added, "but country's in a bit of a recession right now."
Beyond those formats, "metal does excellent," Hyman said, adding that headbangers are also "probably one of the easiest crowds to manage." (And the worst? Ozzy Osbourne fans, according to Hyman.)
Blues and rock have sold well at The Adler, Kearns said. Successful concerts at the theatre in recent years include Johnny Lang, B.B. King, Widespread Panic, and Poison, she said. Yet the theatre's musical lineup for the rest of the year is dominated by tried-and-true country, with Diamond Rio on November 7, Sawyer Brown on November 23, and the Oak Ridge Boys on December 9.
Kearns wondered whether promoters shy away from this market because of its spotty history with some types of concerts. "We just don't have a proven track record," she said.
Concerts cancelled because of poor ticket sales certainly don't help matters any, and neither does an artist slate that rarely moves off the double yellow line. If, as Hyman suggests, the Quad Cities can support virtually any concert, the play-it-safe scheduling isn't providing the opportunity to prove it.
Radio Killed the Interesting Music
A self-fulfilling prophecy might be at work, as well. Nielsen said one of the first things he does when he's thinking of booking a concert is research a community - figuring out whether there's enough interest for a show and what ticket prices the area might support.
Much of that research is done by talking to programmers at local radio stations, Nielsen said.
And on the Quad Cities radio dial, that's a problem, said Douglas, who in addition to booking bands for RIBCO plays in the popular power-pop outfit Einstein's Sister.
Generating excitement about a concert or simply spreading the word necessitates radio support, but for artists outside the mainstream, there aren't any commercial outlets in the Quad Cities. While this certainly applies to emerging artists that might play RIBCO, it would also be true for respected but less-well-known musicians, such as Keb' Mo' and Ben Harper.
"You need to have radio and print media on board" for those types of artists, Douglas said. "Otherwise, you're just preaching to the converted."
But getting radio support "is getting more challenging as time goes on," Douglas said.
"We get more than adequate support from radio," countered Kearns, but it's important to note that the Adler tends to bring in acts whose music fits nicely in existing Quad City formats.
That's not true for popular alternative acts and the stations of the two major radio players in the area, the Quad City Radio Group and Cumulus Communications. "Radio tends to have a more singular voice based on the programming consultants," Douglas said.
Alternative artists might get played on university-based stations such as KALA and KUNI, but those have relatively limited audiences.
Acts that are popular with college audiences might play well in the Quad Cities, Douglas said, but corporate radio stations won't put them on their playlists. "You can't just take a record into a radio station and say, 'This is good. They're coming to town,'" Douglas said. "They're not even getting played. They're not getting the shrink-wrap broken."
He added that some bands that were interested in playing at RIBCO backed out because they knew they wouldn't get any radio support here.
Certainly, many music lovers are bypassing radio altogether now, and a lot of new sources of music provide alternative artists some of the exposure they need to break through.
Douglas noted that some local and off-the-beaten-path bands might have more luck getting on the playlist of a nationwide digital-cable music station than on the local FM dial. "There was one weekend, I heard us four times in two days," Douglas said of Einstein's Sister on digital cable. "I'm not aware of any airplay [on a commercial radio station in the Quad Cities] for anything off the last record. ... It just doesn't fit the programming."
Yet a lack of airplay doesn't translate into a lack of an audience. "We have five colleges here," Kearns noted.
And there have been examples of alternative acts doing very well in the Quad Cities. Widespread Panic sold out the Adler Theatre in less than an hour. The jam band the Big Wu was a big draw for RIBCO, even without radio support, because of a loyal fan base and savvy Internet marketing. "It was their second time in the marketplace ... and we brought them in not knowing how they would do," Douglas said. "We had a line out the door to get into the club. ... Marketing plays a big role."
But it's not just up to the bands. Venues and promoters need to be less staid in programming, and fans need to buy tickets. Otherwise, it's just a never-ending cycle.
