Every person promoting a bluegrass festival is confronted with the dilemma of balancing artistic excellence with business concerns within the context of varying audience tastes as well as willingness to pay. This dilemma creates a constant pull between wishing to provide the most desirable bands available to perform the music bluegrass fans love to hear and putting together a show which will enable the promoter to make a small profit. Despite what some fans may think, few (if any) promoters are getting rich presenting their events. They must be constantly thinking about the artistic balance and cost factors.
Selecting bands to perform requires booking bands that can “put butts in the seats.” This commonly used description may not be as simple as one might think. Each of us can think of bands, which are popular with a specific fan base who represent a solid draw in particular areas. Some of these bands appeal to a segment of the universe of bluegrass fans while actually repelling others. Darrel Atkins, promoter of Musicians Against Childhood Cancer in Columbus, Ohio often gives a speech during his festival suggesting that not everyone will like every band they’re going to hear. His solution to this problem, while offering an all-star lineup most of whom will meet with wide acceptance from his audience, suggests that people who don’t like a particular performer should avail themselves of the opportunity to visit the vendors, return to their camper for a nap, or to jam for a while. This approach works well at The MACC, although some other festivals are inhabited by chair slappers, who ostentatiously get up to leave when they hear sounds not to their taste, or see a drum (heaven forbid) brought onto the stage. Some bands seen as exhibiting bad taste or offering less than superb skills continue to draw fans. Other bands, perform the music with expertise that astounds, but present their material with such an astonishing lack of showmanship or enthusiasm that they bore rather than attract. It’s crucial for a promoter to know the tastes and preferences the actual audience while reaching out to the much larger potential audience. Trying to attract a more diverse audience, in terms of age, ethnicity, or musical preference doesn’t seem to please more people. Rather, such efforts turn off as many people as they attract. Even mega-festivals (Merlefest, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Bonnaroo) which feature some top bluegrass talent turn out to repel a significant part of the core bluegrass audience because of their diversity.
Balancing artistic decisions are business decisions which would lead to making a profit or going into the hole. Most promoters of bluegrass festivals build their events out of their own passion for the music. It would seem that events primarily sponsored by institutions rather than presented by individuals are more likely to outlive their founders unless the festival can develop a life of its own. Thus the California Bluegrass Association (The Father’s Day Festival), the Boston Bluegrass Union (Joe Val) , Wilkes Community College (Merlefest) have long-running festivals not associated with a specific promoters. The passion of the promoter is often crucial to the life of a festival.
National bands, according to one promoter, can be divided into A, B, and C levels, representing their price points and, to a lesser degree, their saleability. Certain bands, which have low price points and little demonstrable excellence can still attract audiences in certain regions based on their regional reputation or local appeal. Even some of the top bands, seen as A+ for their number of IBMA awards, longevity, and demonstrated quality in recording sales with top labels, attract more paying customers in some areas than in others. It’s little wonder that certain bands are so busy; they can be counted on to deliver audiences. But the hitch, for promoters, is the question of whether a few A bands can deliver sufficient numbers to carry a three or four day festival. While band performance prices seem to be somewhat flexible, they still fall into ranges some promoters can afford, while representing a risk for others.
It’s at this point where the development of lineups including local and regional bands with specific attraction to local audiences becomes important. All-star promotions are often very attractive to audiences, but they offer insufficient opportunities for emerging local and regional bands to gain experience and develop a fan base to continue enriching the pool of attractive national bands. They also come with a high price tag. This is where a national mixing bowl like IBMA’s World of Bluegrass, and even SPBGMA, can serve to give new and emerging bands a boost. Providing for a kids academy has the potential to make festivals more attractive to parents, but entails some costs, as do structured children’s activities. Even where volunteers to staff such activities are available, the promoter must still bear some cost burden.
Finally, the promoter must ask the question of what price point for tickets the audience will bear. Since much of the bluegrass audience is an aging one, many of them (us) remember what tickets cost when we first started attending festivals. For some, this number is around $25 – $30 for a festival, where simple inflation would push this price to over $100. The hundred dollar barrier seems a difficult one for many people who attend bluegrass festivals to hurdle. Meanwhile, many other costs, largely hidden to attendees (porta-pottie rentals, license fees, rental for tents, sound, lease for grounds, insurance, etc.) continue to rise. All these considerations suggest that the small, family oriented festival will slowly, but surely, be supplanted by larger, corporate events capable of spreading their own costs further as a part of an overall plan. Few of us would prefer to see this outcome. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important, as you decide how to spend your entertainment dollar, to support your local or regional bluegrass festivals, remembering, that at $100 or more for a three or four day event, you are receiving one of the great entertainment bargains still available.
tlehmann@ne.rr.com
www.tedlehmann.blogspot.com
