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Entertainment and Music in NWA

bobhazor

By bobhazor
in Northwest Arkansas

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masons_dad1 Town

masons_dad1

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Well, a thriving music scene indirectly affects the appearance of large acts. As I stated in one of my previous posts, these bands and their labels aren't looking for nice venues and guarantee monies. They are looking to reach a fan base. They aren't going to reach a fan base here they can't reach from Tulsa, OKC, Kansas, Dallas because so few people support music. What I forgot to mention is the fact that these large acts aren't getting cuts of the ticket sales either, at least, large substantial cuts, these profits usually go to the promoter. So, if these acts, their labels and their bookers looked at NWA and said, there's a place where there's alot of music afficianados who we definately need to impress, so let's go there; we don't really have that going for us just yet. But the more we start supporting the local music scene, regional acts, and selling out the national acts that come in, we'll start to get that rep.

And it is upsetting the lack of interest and the responsibility we place on others to help us get a good scene going. That may be the fault of some of the bands, but we're trying to change that, most importantly, by talking the venues into do more showcases. In the case of one of my bands, we're now trying to attach another band to every show we book, so the people who do show up get more bang for their buck in a sense. Right now, you go out and you'll hear some stinkers because the good bands require more money, but the venues can't recoup because they have to rely on the band's crowd instead of having a built in crowd of music explorers. Well, the band's crowd can't always come to every performance. The more random people that start showing up to random shows the better the bands will get. It's a tall order, but it will happen.

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Aporkalypse City

Aporkalypse

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Blues Traveler is a nationally known hit making band and they just played in Fayetteville, so there's some interest by big name artists already. I'm not sure what more other artists are looking for, but like I said, Fayetteville's music scnese doesn't look like it's lacking when you look at how many concerts there are just for May. If that's not enough to impress anyone then something needs to be done to do a better job of promoting these concerts. Maybe Nightflying and Free Weekly need to be distributed to the right places and people need to be told to pick one up. Free Weekly can be found in Rogers and Bentonville, but I haven't seen a Nightflying in years.

I know they probably wouldn't reach way up here into Rogers, but don't a lot of the bands that play in Fayetteville distribute those little printed flyers about their band and when and where they're playing? I used to see those a lot in some cities I've lived in. They usually make good souvenirs for fans that collect them too. Although, printing them probably isn't cheap enough to make them reasonable.

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bobhazor Unincorporated Area

bobhazor

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Blue Travelers' stock has fallen significantly; but there have been some good acts coming to town lately.

Advertising doesn't seem to do the trick. I know for some shows, I'll get us in every paper in Arkansas, including Free Weekly and Nightflying, as well as some radio, some television and flyers, but most of our fans are friends or friends of friends. For the expense, these seem to do very little. Now, for the bigger acts, I think the promoters fall short in getting the word out, but then, they are probably afraid, because of the lack or appreciation, and I don't know how many times I can say this, for musical acts large or small in NWA, that they won't make money back. I'm not going to spend thousands on advertising if I'm not going to make it back. This is a business...not a free service for people to feel good provided by musicians or government.

George's garden, one of our best venues (which isn't saying much) can probably seat about 400. If you're going to bring in a larger act like blue traveler, here's what's going to happen. You're going to sell tickets. Let's say they where $25 per ticket. It sells out:

$25 x 400 = $10,000

- $7000 guarantee to band $3000

- $1000 additional staff $2000

- $1000 ticket printing $1000

Now, you've got about $1000 dollars to work with on advertisement that isn't free and misc.. Well, you can buy about a weeks worth of radio advertising with that, so there, it's all gone, which sucks, because you hired a bigger name band so you hopefully wouldn't have to spend that money. In the case of george's and most of the other venues, the venue is the promoter and that puts them in the situation of making money off of bar sales. So, george's will come out on top, no doubt. Those 400 folks are going to buy a little bit of beer, but the expense of decent advertisement is not justified or needed. In other words, if I'm hiring blues traveler expecting them to sell out anyway, then why should I spend $10,000 to advertise everywhere. The rub comes when I book blue traveler expecting them to sell out and they don't and I'm stuck just breaking even or losing because of the big guarantee (do the math, but only sell 200 tickets). Who loses, well, the people of NWA lose because now that venue is going to think twice before paying to bring in a bigger act, the local and regional bands or going to lose, because the venue is going to take out the loss on their cuts (that's just the way it is). So, I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, the solution to the problem lies in the people of NWA supporting the local music scene they want to improve so badly. Why? because if you go to see one of our many local bands at george's and george's makes a big profit, then they'll be willing to shell out the money and take the risk of brining in a big band.

Do you want bigger better venues?

Shell out five bucks (the cost of a beer), pick out a random local band, go see them. Once that venue starts having better business, they'll start brining in bigger acts, once those bigger acts start bringing in too many people, the venues who are banking are now going to want a bigger place. They're going to build it.

Bottom line: Why would any investor want to build any bigger better venue or bring in any bigger better band when we can't support what we got. What venue is still here that was here five years ago? George's and.....

Even if you don't like what you hear out there, think about the end result.

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bobhazor Unincorporated Area

bobhazor

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The AMP has added two new shows

LYLE LOVETT and KD LANG and HIS LARGE BAND. TUESDAY, JULY 10. this should be good. I saw them last year and was really impressed.

NICK LACHEY. FRIDAY, JULY 20. LIVE IN CONCERT - NICK LACHEY. This is Nick Lachey of Jessica and Nick Newlyweds fame.

Also of note

June 14th Pat Metheny Trio (6 time or so grammy award winning jazz guitarist) at the WAC

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masons_dad1 Town

masons_dad1

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The AMP has added two new shows

LYLE LOVETT and KD LANG and HIS LARGE BAND. TUESDAY, JULY 10. this should be good. I saw them last year and was really impressed.

NICK LACHEY. FRIDAY, JULY 20. LIVE IN CONCERT - NICK LACHEY. This is Nick Lachey of Jessica and Nick Newlyweds fame.

Also of note

June 14th Pat Metheny Trio (6 time or so grammy award winning jazz guitarist) at the WAC

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slyder1 Burg

slyder1

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I didn't know where to post this but I noticed that NW Arkansas lacks in the radio station department. I could be wrong but do any stations there cary American Top 40 with Ryan Seacrest, Lex and Terry, Delilah, Jeff Foxworthy Countdown... Hopefully someone can answer me?

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AshJs3 Unincorporated Area

AshJs3

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I didn't know where to post this but I noticed that NW Arkansas lacks in the radio station department. I could be wrong but do any stations there cary American Top 40 with Ryan Seacrest, Lex and Terry, Delilah, Jeff Foxworthy Countdown... Hopefully someone can answer me?
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AshJs3 Unincorporated Area

AshJs3

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I went to the Eagles concert last night, but we were turned away at the door. The usher told us they already had 9,000 people in and that was capacity. If I'm not mistaken Bud Walton holds over 20,000 so I'm not sure how that's capacity. I don't know if the guy was wrong or what, but we were pretty upset. There were probably 1500-2000 people standing outside trying to get in. I'm not sure if all of them were shareholders or employees, but there were a lot of people that were who were also very angry.

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das450 Whistle-Stop

das450

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I believe it was only opened up half for the Eagles.

Gretchen Wilson performed today and her manager advsied that they would not be back at the AMP this summer. The AMP had been working with her for a concert.

Speaking of the AMP - They are in talks with a few other musicians and Willie Nelson is one of them.

I went to the Eagles concert last night, but we were turned away at the door. The usher told us they already had 9,000 people in and that was capacity. If I'm not mistaken Bud Walton holds over 20,000 so I'm not sure how that's capacity. I don't know if the guy was wrong or what, but we were pretty upset. There were probably 1500-2000 people standing outside trying to get in. I'm not sure if all of them were shareholders or employees, but there were a lot of people that were who were also very angry.
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masons_dad1 Town

masons_dad1

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I went to the Eagles concert last night, but we were turned away at the door. The usher told us they already had 9,000 people in and that was capacity. If I'm not mistaken Bud Walton holds over 20,000 so I'm not sure how that's capacity. I don't know if the guy was wrong or what, but we were pretty upset. There were probably 1500-2000 people standing outside trying to get in. I'm not sure if all of them were shareholders or employees, but there were a lot of people that were who were also very angry.
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strmchsr77 Burg

strmchsr77

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I believe Bud Walton Arena has seating for 14,000 but the attendance for Wal-Mart Shareholders Meeting is usually around 27,000. I did hear that the fire marshall was cracking down on Bud Walton this year and they were only allowing people with reserve seating in at one point.
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