[Dixielandjazz] Weak Concert Season - Time to push Jazz?

[Stephen Barbone]

It seems as if the aging rock music genre, alternative, etc., is
slumping in the US along with some other music genres. This might be a
good time to push your brand of OKOM to the kids, who seem to be
searching for the next wave. Combine it with Sexy Dirty Dancing (like
Barbone Street), and/or comedy (like the Boondockers) or longevity (like
Brian Towers) or ?  But for heaven's sake, don't just sit there, do
something.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


June 23, 2004 - NY Times

Lollapalooza Tour Canceled Amid Weak Concert Season

By BEN SISARIO

   In a blow to the summer concert season already hurt by the loss of
big tours by Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, the touring
Lollapalooza festival has been canceled because of poor ticket sales,
the festival organizers said yesterday.

The tour, which was to have begun on July 14 in Auburn, Wash., and
travel to 16 cities through Aug. 25, had booked Morrissey, Sonic Youth,
P. J. Harvey, String Cheese Incident, Modest Mouse, the Flaming Lips and
many other alternative rock groups for 31 engagements across the United
States.

Marc Geiger of the William Morris Agency in Los Angeles, who founded the
tour in 1991 with the singer Perry Ferrell, said in a statement: "I am
in utter disbelief that a concert of this stature, with the most
exciting lineup I've seen in years, did not galvanize ticket sales. I'm
surprised that given the great bands and the reduced ticket prices that
we didn't have enough sales to sustain the tour."

Representatives of the festival did not disclose sales figures for the
concerts, but Mr. Geiger said that if the concerts had not been
canceled, the promoters would have faced losses in the millions.

The cancellation comes at a difficult time for the concert business.
Many large tours are said to be having difficulty selling tickets,
despite strong economic signals for the business earlier in the year.

"We had a very strong first quarter, which allowed people to be a little
overly optimistic going into the summer," said Gary Bongiovanni, the
editor of the concert trade magazine Pollstar. "But ticket sales dried
up in mid-April, right after tax day, just as the big tours started to
gear up."

Mr. Geiger said ticket sales had been uneven around the country, with
relatively strong sales for the Aug. 16 and 17 concerts at Randalls
Island in New York, where the Pixies were to make one of their only two
appearances on the tour.

But in many markets, the concerts were said to have sales not much
higher than one of the headlining acts might have drawn on its own.

"Sometimes one plus one plus one equals one in this business," Mr.
Bongiovanni said.

The tour's cancellation is bad news for the bands; most were counting on
the tour to support new albums. Morrissey, P. J. Harvey, Wilco and
Modest Mouse all have released CD's in the last few months.

The first Lollapalooza tour in 1991, which featured Jane's Addiction,
Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T and the Rollins Band, helped define the
alternative rock market that transformed the music industry in the
1990's. The tour had six summer sequels before bowing out in 1997 with
Snoop Dogg, Korn and Tool. Its highest gross was the 1994 tour, when it
earned more than $21 million, according to Billboard.

The festival returned last summer with a reunited Jane's Addiction,
though it was not entirely successful. Two concerts on that tour were
canceled. Its gross last year was $13.7 million for 25 concerts,
Billboard reported in April.

Ms. Spears canceled her tour because of a knee injury, and Ms. Aguilera
cited strained vocal cords.

Mr. Geiger blamed the slow concert season for the festival's woes,
citing poor sales for the Dead, Dave Matthews, Van Halen and Kiss. "My
question is, what is doing well?" he said. But not all promoters agreed
that the summer concert business was in a slump.

Seth Hurwitz, an independent promoter in Washington who booked
Lollapalooza into the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md., said
that there was waning interest in aging alternative rock acts like the
ones on the Lollapalooza tour.

"How well is Morrissey going to do in the Midwest?" he said. "I wouldn't
venture to guess. The problem is that there is just not a really large
interest in alternative music. What was called alternative in the 90's
was exploding with something new, with Pearl Jam and Nirvana. It was
exciting stuff."

Mr. Hurwitz said many of his concerts, including those by younger acts
like Evanescence and Three Doors Down, were selling well.

"They tried to pull together Morrissey and Sonic Youth," he said, on an
alternative bill. "But there are not enough people who care about it."