Friday, July 18, 2008
A big-time concert tour will once again stop in Roanoke
Ralph Berrier
Riffs, the regional music scene as heard by The Roanoke Times reporter Ralph Berrier, will appear weekly on Sundays.
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I have it on good authority that a big-time concert tour will once again stop in the Roanoke Valley.
Don't know who, don't know when. But concerts are coming.
"We've got some shows that aren't contracted yet," said John Saunders, assistant director of the Salem Civic Center. Once those contracts are signed, the civic center will make an announcement. "We've got three in the fall that I know of."
That's the way it works in these parts. Concerts return in the fall like tailgates to Blacksburg. Summer is slow concert time for the Roanoke and Salem civic centers (the July 29 B.B. King show at the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre is the exception).
I can count on one hand the number of hotshot acts that have played either place the past three summers, and I lost three fingers in a bowling-ball-return accident when I was a child.
OK, so I made that up (I only got stitches and that is the truth). But it is undeniable that the Roanoke Valley concert business has been down lately. Turns out it's not just a Roanoke Valley problem.
The concert industry is flatter than a Kansas cornfield. Pollstar recently reported that the top 100 tours grossed the identical amount of money the first six months of this year as they did the same period last year. Although flat revenues might be better than declining revenues, the troubling part is that the only reason revenues are flat is because ticket prices increased.
Ticket sales are down 5.6 percent nationwide this year, according to Pollstar, but prices increased 5.9 percent to an average of just more than $62. This creates a vicious cycle in which rising prices mean even fewer people can afford to go to concerts, which could result in even higher prices, especially for big-name acts.
Which returns us to the Roanoke Valley, where folks don't exactly have $100 bills falling out of their back pockets. If ticket prices keep climbing, will the Roanoke Valley be priced out of the concert business?
"Historically, Roanoke doesn't support high ticket prices," said Robyn Schon, Roanoke Civic Center's assistant director, who has been its acting director of late. "With the cost of gas going up, and food, too, the entertainment spending is the first to go. People will still be entertained, but they will find different and more affordable ways of doing it."
Schon said she is talking to promoters about tours coming to Roanoke this fall and hopes to have dates locked up by late August.
Saunders, too, believes people aren't spending as much on shows and concerts.
"We're seeing concertgoers with less disposable income," Saunders said. "Some people might still purchase a $50 or $60 ticket, but when they come to the show they can't buy anything else."
Saunders also said that high fuel costs and other expenses are making the road a tough place for many midlevel acts -- i.e., the kind we often get here. Those costs get passed to the consumer in the form of higher ticket prices. Even though music fans would gladly pay a premium price to see, say, U2 in the Roanoke Civic Center, they won't pay $60 to see some band that's released one album.
(Just to clarify in case you're skimming: No, U2 is not coming to the Roanoke Civic Center. I was fantasizing. I won't do it again.)
The Roanoke Valley doesn't get a lot of the top-grossing shows. The biggest concert we've seen this year was the Keith Urban-Carrie Underwood extravaganza, which ranked 11th on Pollstar's list of highest-grossing concerts.
Other big tours we've seen the past 10 months include Kid Rock (No. 30), Blue Man Group (No. 56), Three Days Grace/Breaking Benjamin (No. 58), Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (No. 65) and the Christian-themed Winter Jam (No. 98). B.B. King's upcoming show is currently ranked No. 95.
