Reuters.com Fanfare page has this opinion from Rob Cox:
When it comes to urban economic development, Ashley Capps isn’t the kind of businessman that comes to the mind of most local politicians. After all, he’s a rock-and-roll promoter. He puts on big, rollicking festivals, like the Bonnaroo Festival, where tens of thousands of music fans camp, dance and party in the middle of the Tennessee countryside. So what’s a guy like Capps doing in a city like Asheville, North Carolina?
Well, from the looks of the past weekend, he’s making serious coin for the people of this town in the mountains of western North Carolina. The second annual Moogfest, which Capps’ firm AC Entertainment puts together in homage to the godfather/inventor of the electronic synthesizer Bob Moog, brought as many as 30,000 people into downtown Asheville, to sample music, art and electronic geekery at a handful of venues.
Capps, you see, is a new kind of conventioneer. Events like Moogfest are precisely the kind of thing that smaller cities, particularly those with adequate tourism infrastructure and underutilized performing arts spaces, can look to as a transformative way to bring in fresh tourist dollars and promote a new form of economic development. ...Read the full article
When it comes to urban economic development, Ashley Capps isn’t the kind of businessman that comes to the mind of most local politicians. After all, he’s a rock-and-roll promoter. He puts on big, rollicking festivals, like the Bonnaroo Festival, where tens of thousands of music fans camp, dance and party in the middle of the Tennessee countryside. So what’s a guy like Capps doing in a city like Asheville, North Carolina?
Well, from the looks of the past weekend, he’s making serious coin for the people of this town in the mountains of western North Carolina. The second annual Moogfest, which Capps’ firm AC Entertainment puts together in homage to the godfather/inventor of the electronic synthesizer Bob Moog, brought as many as 30,000 people into downtown Asheville, to sample music, art and electronic geekery at a handful of venues.
Capps, you see, is a new kind of conventioneer. Events like Moogfest are precisely the kind of thing that smaller cities, particularly those with adequate tourism infrastructure and underutilized performing arts spaces, can look to as a transformative way to bring in fresh tourist dollars and promote a new form of economic development. ...Read the full article
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Sing along:
Money!
Money changes everything
We think we know what we're doin
We don't pull the strings
It's all in the past now
Money changes everything
By ironhead
11/01/2011