Lubbock Music Festival Announced, The Hub City Yawns

I actually wanted to name this article "Lubbock Music Festival Announced, The Hub City Yawns, farts and rolls over and goes back to sleep", but I thought that was too juvenile.  But I did it anyway, SEE?  The festival has been so poorly booked in the past it really has no chance of meaning anything ever.  There has to be some seismic shift in the way things are done in order for this to ever be a "destination" festival.  More after the jump.

The same organizers that have made the festival mean nothing in the past are the ones trying to take it to the future. They've announced that they're looking to book something for September 27th through 29th and that they are looking to book all genres including "country, jazz and folk.  Excuse me, does that sound like "all genres" to you?  That's part of the problem, these people have a very narrow view of the world.  I can tell you right now what they're thinking and what they'll do.  They're thinking if they put it in late September they can "take advantage" of the college crowd, therefore, they will book a red dirt country band (the kind you can see every weekend at Wild West).  They will then find an oldies or 70's act with about 2/3rds or 1/2 the original members (think Three Dog Night or The Turtles).  They will then book Joe Ely.  They will then pad the rest of everything with artists that you can see every weekend at the Cactus Theater.  Now, let me back up and say there's nothing wrong with their artists, there is just nothing "special" about getting them together.

The problem folks, is the money trail.  All the money is coming from the same place and being filtered through the same hands.  So Wes, you bigmouth, how do you fix it?  It's so friggin' easy, but the "right people" don't get paid so it'll never happen.  It's simple.  You set up a conference call with every single promoter in the area.  You tell them that you are setting up a destination music festival and that you want to "TEAM" and or partially underwrite some shows.  You offer discounts on venues, on hotels, on sound and on advertising.  That is why it's called SEED money.  You use it to SEED the festival, and others actually do the booking and take the risks.  Instead we the current organizers use the  budget to directly book acts, therefore we get a HELL OF A LOT LESS FOR OUR MONEY. And how convinced am I that the "Lubbock Music Festival" will never mean anything?  I personally owned the website urls www.lubbockmusicfestival.com, .org and .net and I decided not to renew them.

Anyways, we don't just complain.  Very, very soon, we will announce the biggest weekend in Lubbock Live Music History.   We'll show you how it's done very soon.