Whatever Happened to the Plan to Put Up a Giant Guitar in the Depot District?
A giant salute to music in the Hub City just kind of never happened.
I was driving along Sunday on a beautiful West Texas Sunday morning and it occurred to me that Lubbock's skyline is kind of...eh. Something's wrong when the most notable thing in your skyline is Joyland's Daredevil Drop when it's lit up for the season. Then I remembered, wasn't there supposed to be a giant light-up guitar in the Depot District?
I remember actually being for the idea when it was presented, even though the idea was so derivative. After all, isn't this what the Hard Rock Cafe does everywhere they go? Well, it turns out the idea was a whole bunch of what Texans call "bull-pucky" from the word go.
The idea of putting a giant light-up guitar in the Depot District was ill-conceived from the start. Apparently, the plan that was presented was to place the guitar on the Stenocall cell tower. There were a couple of problems with this plan. Number one, the tower wasn't built to support this kind of thing. Number two, nobody thought about possible interference from all those lights. And number three...wait for it...the whole thing appears to have been a big surprise to Stenocall.
It was hoped that the project was going to find a sponsor from a guitar company, with Fender being the most likely target. This whole project seems like it was dreamed up by The Little Rascals or something, with the thought being 'we need a giant guitar and we'll make other people pay for it' with no clear analysis or research put into the project ahead of time. The idea was just floated out there and a lot of us wrongly assumed that the people behind it had done their homework.
I think it's safe to assume after all of this time that there will not be a giant guitar lighting up the Depot District so just enjoy the lights of Joyland's Daredevil Drop when you can.