Heartland show went on...barely

The Heartland Music Festival on the Westside Bluff last weekend was on the brink of collapse just hours before the show and is now mired in losses and allegations of lost and missing money.

Sources tell the Capital News that unpaid workers and contractors threatened to stop work Thursday and would close down the show less than 24 hours before country music star Reba McEntire took the stage Friday night.

Creditors, investors, volunteers and promoter Deborah J. Cameron met until nearly 10 p.m. Thursday to put together a new deal to prevent the concert from being canceled.

In the end, it was long-term investors in the festival who kicked in more money to ensure the show would go on.

But that came with a price for Cameron who lost some control over her own show when smaller investors wanted an independent accounting.

When asked Tuesday if she would be back next year, Cameron said: “I hope with all my heart I am back next year. I intend to continue producing shows.”

Both the Heartland Music Festival (McEntire and LeAnn Rimes) and Rock the Bluff (ZZ Top and Evanescence) flopped in terms of ticket sales.

Final tallies couldn’t be confirmed by the ticket agent.

McEntire and ZZ Top drew well, but couldn’t make up for huge losses on Evanescence and Rimes.

Cameron said marketing strategy called for potential losses in the first few years while the festival grows, but she wasn’t prepared for such large losses.

“I don’t lack integrity, I lack money,” Cameron said.

“That is what it came down to.”

Stop the Violence is the local charity that held the special occasion liquor licence for the beer gardens.

Director Dewey Lotoski, also a chartered accountant, said he was called to a meeting late Thursday in which his society agreed to forego the proceeds from the beer tent and put it back into the festival.

“We felt it was important for Kelowna and its music industry to have it go through. It wouldn’t look good for tourists or (the music industry in) Nashville if it was called off at the last minute. The negative publicity would have been extremely bad,” he said. “A lot of people really got thrown into it and pulled it off.”

But it was in large part due to volunteers and professionals in the local music industry who saved the show, which many described as very disorganized.

That included accounting and missing money that left the show strapped at the eleventh hour.

The RCMP got complaints on several fronts about money missing from various accounts.

Cameron confirmed the losses in the show, but said faith in her abilities was confirmed by her long-term investors who bailed her out.

The one thing everyone involved in the show seems committed to is the site.

The Bluff remains one of the last few undeveloped spaces in the area, a picturesque setting for an outdoor music venue.

Brad Krauza was one of the local professionals called in to help salvage the show.

He said as far as he’s concerned, the show went on and people had a great time.

“If the crowd heard some good music and they left with a good feeling, then it is a success.”


CLICK HERE to discuss in our forum.

Face The Music

David M. Ross

Most record execs agree that SoundScan is the chart-of-choice when it comes to profits, but Music City also has a long history of celebrating airplay success. Billboard Monitor’s country chart for the week ending July 25 presented Reba as No. 1 with an unusually large gain of 1150 spins—only the fourth time since 1993 that a song has moved to No. 1 with greater than 1,000 spins and not the first time that a No. 1 song didn’t have the highest audience on the chart. “Reba McEntire legitimately got a number one record this week, says Billboard Country Chart Director Wade Jessen. “Our job is to show that it happened and in cases where it is unusual, to show how it happened. It’s not our job to invalidate or cast aspersions against it, just open a dialog about what this means for country music and radio as we all concentrate on reclaiming the fiscal health of our business. We stake our reputation on the truth, even when it hurts.”

“I couldn’t be more proud of the job done by the MCA promotion department,” says Promotion head Scott Borchetta. “The plan was created in Las Vegas during the ACMs at my first meeting with the department after being appointed Senior VP over DreamWorks, Mercury and MCA. I said ‘This Reba record is a hit and I think we have a shot at a No. 1 record.’ One rep later told me, ‘I walked out pumped, but I also had butterflies in my stomach.’ But everyone took it to heart, rose to the challenge and contributed to an amazing plan executed to near perfection.”

Some observers believe that UMG/MCA spent extremely high dollars to effect the move. “Spin programs were bought with After Midnite, Citadel and Entercom,” says Borchetta, “but you do not generate 1150 spins across those programs alone. You wouldn’t believe some of the silly numbers being tossed around. A lot of labels are whining that we paid upwards of a $100,000. Couldn’t be further from the truth. Did we do several programs? Yes, but for only a fraction of that cost. Don't forget 'Somebody' is Rusty Walker's No. 1 testing single and Top 5 in callout basically everywhere. Power rotations are not bought, they are earned.”

So how did MCA accomplish its mission? “What I can tell you,” says Borchetta, “is that most every record that has hit No. 1 in the last two years had at least some kind of syndication whether it was an After Midnite promotion or one of the other programs out there. We worked nonstop to identify all the available opportunities and collected the most complete list in the business. We scored huge increases in markets of every size and directed our efforts at every reporting station on the panel. It was a thrill to watch. I’m not going to reveal everything we worked so hard to obtain, but the fact that everybody in town is talking about it is good. This puts the overnight spin discussion front and center, and it needs to be addressed."

“Remember, radio is in the business to sell advertising,” Borchetta says. “I’m trusted by the people who hired me to make proper and legal decisions, to maximize profits, and to have hit records. If anybody thinks we are going to spend the kind of money that people have speculated, just to move a song to number one they are out of their minds. There isn’t a more powerful artist in country music than Reba McEntire. Reba worked hard with us for the last several weeks to create exclusive content for several of the radio chains and logged over 70 calls to reporting radio stations. Are we going to do this every week? No. This was one of those moments in time—Reba McEntire gets to win, it’s the buzz of the town and it is the coolest thing we could have done.”

For Billboard’s country chart, last week’s business as unusual pointed out what many are calling a flaw in the system. But it also upped the ante on a game that everyone plays. “That’s probably a fair assessment,” admits Jessen. “If this type of thing escalates, the town can anticipate that we will consider a move from a spin-based chart to an audience-based system. It may not be a matter of if, just when. The Tim McGraw record actually logged two million more audience impressions, but the opportunities that were maximized to reach No. 1 were totally directed at our chart methodology. So yes, it begs the question of a counter move on our part. However, a midyear switch in methodology has a lot of implications for year-end chart recaps. We don’t like to make major changes in the middle of a year.”
-Sent by Bernie

CLICK HERE to discuss in our forum.