Putting together a free concert series is interesting, because success is not measured by ticket sales. When you don't look at it from a revenue standpoint it is a whole different view of the music scene. A friend of mine does the bookings, but we continually discuss the "relevance" of our acts. A lot of 70's and 80's acts travel the casino circuit and are available to route through Egg Harbor on a Sunday for a reduced fee, but we tend to shy away from the Charlie Daniels/Oak Ridge Boys/ Marshall Tucker acts. They draw people, but that is not our objective. We wish to provide relevance.
It's an interesting concept, that whole relevance thing, as it can't be defined. One of our best acts over the last 8 years was Richie Havens, he was really good. Probably the all time worst act was Melanie, but they are both from the same era, neither had new music. We really did not want the ORBs because it will just be too many people. We did Jonny Lang for free last year, had about 3200 people show up, and that's a lot for a small community with no police force. But, people with money have fallen in love with our venue, and I guess if they want to buy a concert who am I to decline?
I get to pick one show a year from a couple of available acts, this year I picked Tab Benoit, who has been here before and puts on a great show.
The Peg Egan center has been an interesting project. I put it together as Village President, and have watched it grow ever since. It was all donated except for about $60k of landscaping the Village paid for. and now we get about 1000 people every Sunday for 9 weeks, the big acts do 2000+. Always free, paid for with room tax money. It's a nice addition to the Village, and not just for tourists.
