Sunday Poll: Thoughts On ICM/Summer Rocks Not Hosting A Concert Memorial Day Weekend?
Yesterday in the Post-Dispatch came word a huge music event planned for Memorial Day weekend will not take place this year:
City officials confirmed on Friday that Summer Rocks, billed as an annual country music concert series on the scale of Lollapalooza in Chicago, will not take place over Memorial Day weekend as planned. And another rock-related event planned for Labor Day weekend is not a certainty. (Post-Dispatch: Summer Rocks concert series in St. Louis stalls; won’t begin in May)
For the poll today I’m interested in your thoughts on this new development, the exact question is: ICM/Summer Rocks has notified St. Louis they won’t hold a concern Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend is uncertain. Thoughts?
I’ve provided a variety of answers but you’re able to add your own at the bottom of the poll, see the right sidebar to vote.
— Steve Patterson
Not every city can have a premiere aquarium, convention center, river/lake front or summer music festival. We need to stop chasing stale ideas and come up some unique ones of our own. The Arch is a destination, but takes less than 2 hours for most people to “see”. The zoo is a destination, and known nationally. The Art Museum could be a bigger destination, if it did some more “blockbuster” shows. Most people don’t have either the time nor the money to do a 2, 3 or 4 day music event, especially one that is out of town, every weekend in the summer – this was a flawed concept from the start, but we’re also willing to throw TIF at any semi-viable commercial project, so I wasn’t surprised that we “took the bait”!
I wouldn’t pin the failure of the Memorial Day concert entirely on the Ferguson protests. However, I suspect the protests, and the possibility of disruption of the concert, were an important factor. Whether or not the protests, or the specter of protests, would deter concert-goers, I don’t know. However, fear of by unrest may have made music acts skittish. And the possibility of national news coverage of such disruptions may have outright scared away sponsors for the concert.
I doubt that Ferguson played a big role in any scheduling issues – if it did, we wouldn’t be seeing very many shows this year at Scottrade or Hollywood Casino/Verizon Wireless/Riverport Amphitheater, either. I’m pretty sure that it’s a combination of limited financial capability, on the promoter’s side, other, prior commitments by the acts and the reality that there are many other events, nationwide, that are bidding to get acts on a long, holiday weekend. Getting the tour schedules of dozens of acts to mesh is always a challenge for any new, big festival, and with ticket sales being a big unknown (both quantity and price point), I’m not surprised that it’s provingto be “difficult”! Look at Stagecoach for what this is trying to be: http://www.stagecoachfestival.com/