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Looper's Delight
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Mark wrote, in my defence (and thanks), "But Rainer all that would be assuming that Rick was interested in being a Festival Promoter for quite some months of the year in order to organize all this. As far as I know Ricks day job is as a musician and as such.. aint rich... ha ha! (maybe he is? I did say as far as I know, but I dont know many rich musicians... I know some, not many)." The irony is that I DO spend months out of the year producing and promoting this festival.............all on no money, except the draw of attendance which has never exceeded $1,500 in the entire history of the festival and the beneficence of a few donors to the festival and, last year, a small grant from the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz (all of which I used to bring more artists here). I really appreciate everyone's good intentions (and thanks for the advice, rainer), but the fact of the matter is that I"m not thinking small with this thing. Basically, because of the huge amount of energy that this thing takes (which dips tremendously into my own energy for being an artist myself), I have to make it sustainable, not only for the community, but also for me. I came really close to stopping doing it this year because I had to produce and book an 8 week/9 country tour in Europe that took a good 6 months to accomplish and just didn't think I"d have the 5-6 months that it has taken in the past 3 or 4 years to do this festival, so this year, I decided, I was just going to do it to continue the tradition and not kill myself by trying to best the output of the last three years. Santa Cruz is a funny place. It is probably the most creative place on earth that I've been to if you take the per capita amount of artists that live here and the quality of their creative output in all art forms. We were just listed (with three other major American cities) as the place with the most professional artists per capita in the US. That's extraordinary for a sometimes sleepy tourist town of 50,000 by bay. However, there is also probably more entertainment per capita than any where I've ever been as well. We had two weekly entertainment magazines and a weekly insert for the main newspaper as well and the entertainment section for music alone goes for several pages each week. Trying to even book this festival between the good weather months of May through October (that's California weather for you Europeans who are interested, where it's hotter in September than in July). We have so many film festivals, music festivals, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, the huge Cabrillo Music Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival, the San Jose Jazz Festival, the Greek Festival, the Japanese Festival, et. al. that I finally found one weekend where there was as little conflict as possible. We are also in a debilitating economic depression here. The average value of a house her declined by $250,000- $300,000 in the last year alone and the unemployment rate is 10% in this county. Most people here are underpaid, paying rent that is way to high by normal indexes of house rental versus income statistics.............people are broke. This is a festival that, for the amount of music and the quality of the top players should go for $20 a head AT LEAST, but it is impossible to get people to come if you charge that. Even the biggest names in our looping world do not have the draw to charge prices like this for the festival. Trust me, I know. I know all the promoters in this city for 30 years and I"ve done huge events myself. The whole point is not that I'm being negative at all. Think about it: Why would I dedicate so much of my life for the last 8 years to something that loses me money if I was being negative about this? The point is sustainability. No one in all the countries that I've visited have been able to muster even 100 people to attend the festivals and concerts that we do. Rainer, Munchen is a huge city and you saw how difficult it was to get people to come out to see something brand new. It is just what we are up against, and, honestly, I'm okay with it. I sometimes tell people that these festivals are as much conventions as they are festivals. Part of the beauty of them is to rally our community; to force people to get out and try out new things and techniques; for manufacturers to have a forum to show off their new gear; to get people excited , once again, to keep doing this thing that we all love so much. This festival is a blessing in my life whether it is on a grand scale or not. So, please, trust me on this one: I don't think I can get Juana Molina to come play our festival. I hear your strategy Rainer , for getting a bigger draw to be able to sustain bringing such an incredible artist who has no draw locally, but it's just not that easy. You have to have money and be willing to lose it to bring it a really big act because you have to guarantee them that they will be paid. Santa Cruz is so mercurial when it comes to who draws well (the local 1,000 seat showcase club, the Catalyst sits empty most of the time these days because NOBODY on a moderate level is making any money at all touring) that it's a risk I can't possibly take myself. If someone in this community who has a lot of money and wants to gift the community with an investment wants to come forward and give me the money to bring Juana I'm all for it, trust me. So for everyone who disagrees with me and thinks I'm giving up to easily, I only ask that you please put the energy into such a task yourself. I'll be the first to say I was wrong if you can accomplish it (with no funding as is my situation). Okay, I"m outa here. This is my last post on the subject. I hope you all come to the festival this year and make it a great success. I will for the first time ever, accept donations from the artists who play to offset our expenses and pay the staff. Don't dream of it if you don't have it but if you do, it would be a nice adjunct to the hard work we all do to make this a possibility every year. yours, respectfully, Rick Walker