FestivALL

I haven't been blogging about FestivALL because I haven't participated much. I've been out and about, but I'm waiting to see what happens more than getting into it.

First the good news. Buddy Guy on Mountain Stage killed. Susan Johnston's "How Sissy Grew" appears to have been well-received, too.

But this weekend looms like all kinds of misery. According to the Clay Center's website, there are approximately 580 tickets still available for the Mayor's concert on Thursday. The Billy Jonas concert for the Woody Hawley show on Saturday, up until late last week, had sold only a handful of tickets. Blues, Brews and BBQ and Wine and All That Jazz will probably do OK (they did before FestivALL), but neither has generated a lot of excitement.

You can blame promotion, but this year's FestivALL has been the slickest, most interesting visually so far. I'd argue they should have been feeding information earlier than they did, but when they started was adequate. However, whether FestivALL succeeds of fails, it comes down not to the leaflets and the posters, but the strength of the entertainment to draw a crowd.

On the upside, there are still plenty of tickets available and during the mayor's show right now, there's enough space in the theater to play a game of touch football without having to worry about obstructing the view of the stage.

Ticket count

I must have completely screwed the pooch on the last count for the Booker T and The MGs show. Based on my current count, they have 986 tickets available for sale. Which would mean they somehow magically added 97 tickets or I can't add. Let's figure on the latter.

So, about those tickets...

Of course, the concert is a good two months away. Commercial coverage for FestivALL hasn't started and they're not really pitching anything to the media -at least, nobody is pitching anything to me, but maybe they don't have anything to announce. This could be it. All I've heard about so far for FestivALL is the Buddy Guy addition to Mountain Stage. It's nice, but not something to pump your first about and yell woo-hoo. It's more like, "Well, Mountain Stage at the Clay Center. Gee, that's going to cost at least eleven dollars more. I sure wish they could get The Flaming Lips. That would be fun and the wanker lead singer might wear those stupid antenna."

Anyway, with the Booker T tickets, maybe everybody is waiting to see if anything bigger or better comes along. Everybody is watching their money. They want to be excited. I don't think anybody is feeling it yet. At least, I'm not.