Poll: ICM/Summer Rocks Pushed Bluesweek & Taste of St. Louis Out of Downtown on Two Holiday Weekends. Good Move for Downtown & City?
A few months ago Entertainment Saint Louis, the local promoter behind the Taste of St. Louis and Bluesweek, announced both events were moving to Chesterfield. Since those announcements we’ve learned the city was working on a deal to give ICM/Summer Rocks use of the area around Soldiers Memorial for concerts starting next year:
The plan is for events along the lines of Lollapalooza in Chicago, a music festival that has brought millions of dollars and visitors to the city’s Grant Park since 2005, when it went from a traveling event to an annual Chicago spectacle.
ICM Partners intends to bring country music festivals over Memorial Day weekends and rock festivals over Labor Day weekends. The events will be planned to draw residents throughout the South and Midwest to the area around downtown’s Soldiers Memorial. (stltoday)
This means the region will have more total events than before. The weekly poll this week asks if this is a good move for downtown & the city? The poll is in the right sidebar, the five answers are presented in random order.
I’ll post the results and share my thoughts next week.
— Steve Patterson
I’m less concerned with whether or not an existing “smaller” event stays where it has been in years past or chooses to relocate elsewhere in the region. I’m more concerned with how larger events negatively impact the PUBLIC infrastructure. Moving the Gypsy Caravan this year did not work well. I’m pretty sure that Fair St. Louis’ move to Forest Park next month will be a major cluster, and I have serious concerns about any event fencing off multiple blocks of downtown next year just to charge high ticket prices for anyone to get in. We already have multiple venues – everything from Riverport / Verizon Wireless to Busch Stadium – and we don’t need to be creating another one, especially one downtown. This smacks more of the TIF insanity, where the city is betting on the outcome, instead of managing existing public spaces for the benefit of ALL of its citizens, not just those willing to pay for access!
The underlying issue is that the immediate Soldiers Memorial area is basically wasted space when there isn’t an event there. The green spaces are too broken up by the overly wide street grid to be useful as a general use park.
Define “general use park” – do you mean big enough for ballfields? Many urban parks see more use closer to roadways and sidewalks, both from better access and from a better sense of security. If some (or all) of the streets went away from around Soldiers Memorial, would we really see more use? Or, is it more of a case that’s there’s no there, there? No activities to attract people?
Do we have confirmation that ICM/Summer Rocks pushed Entertainment STL’s events out? If not, this poll question’s very misleading. Personally, I doubt that, if being pushed out, Entertainment STL would just go ahead and let it happen. I’d think we’d’ve seen a Court hearing (either against the City or ICM). That, or a hefty payment to just go away.
The city is reserving the weekends for ICM/Summer Rocks instead of Entertainment St. Louis.