So The Big One turned out to be a Big Flop. Figuratively speaking, no one showed up at the Athens County Fairgrounds on Saturday to watch the 70 musical acts, laugh at nationally touring comedians, enjoy carnival attractions, view student films, eat fair food and enjoy the great outdoors for the last weekend of summer.
The people at Big Events Presents, the company behind The Big One, figured they needed 4,000 people to break even. All estimates pointed to less than half that at the fairgrounds Saturday. Some bands didn't get paid, their guarantees wiped away with an apologetic handshake. The promoters' wide-eyed hopes were doused with tears.
The festival's failure must be hitting organizer Curtis Manley especially hard. He put together smaller events in West Virginia and Columbus that drew several thousand people. But Saturday's lackluster attendance shouldn't be a surprise. As various concert promoters have noted in the past and one reaffirmed Saturday, the people of Athens are not willing to pay much for a concert, no matter what's being offered or how much it's hyped. They simply don't care that much about live music, and that's fine, but it means events like this cannot succeed.
Springfest earlier this year should have been an indicator: Only about 100 people showed up for the daylong bands-and-beer bash at Ervin's Big Red Barn. Proportionally, The Big One's turnout was more of the same.
The factors working against The Big One were too many. The Pawpaw Festival in nearby Albany, is a tradition for many people who might have enjoyed the fairgrounds Saturday. Pushing The Big One back by a week to avoid that schedule conflict might have helped. But if this event was to succeed, it was going to take more than the pawpaw crowd.
The most glaring element missing was a marquee headliner. When your festival's top attraction is the singer of Rusted Root, you're not likely to catch people's attention - certainly not college students enamored with music planted firmly in the present.
The alternative was to present this as a real community fest and focus on the local performers that amounted for more than half of the entertainment. But the Athens Community Music Festival already took place a month ago at eight Uptown venues. Either way, the focus of The Big One was confused from the start.
In an interview a few weeks before the festival, Manley said the original plan was to have 30 bands performing on four stages.
Every time we turned around
there was a chance for us to do something a little bit more. It just grew into what it is now and if things go well odds are it's going to grow even bigger in the future as we continue to do them
Manley said at the time.
The festival grew too big for its own good. If Manley had stuck to the original plan, he probably could have drawn in just as many people but at least come close to breaking even. Instead he was left overextended, without the means to deliver on bands' guarantees.
To the performers' credit, faced with a sparse crowd and the likelihood of not getting paid, nobody phoned it in. The musicians were consistently entertaining, from Bruce Dalzell's masterful folk tunes to Southeast Engine's emphatic early evening set in a chicken coop to Ordinary Peoples' proud showmanship, rocking the nighttime audience with their originals and classic hip-hop covers. Even the tribute acts, despite their sad existence making a living by playing other people's songs, were quite enjoyable, especially Fistful of Steel's note-for-note take on Rage Against The Machine.
Meanwhile, the intimate film-viewing area, despite suffering compromised sound courtesy of the nearby main stage, was host to at least two excellent short-form movies. And Manley accomplished one goal: There was far too much going on for one person to take it all in.
Yet, despite the disappointing turnout, it was quite an event. Unfortunately, in one important category - attendance - it was not a Big One, and this town will likely not see another like it for a long time. As Curtis Manley learned the hard way, the people of Athens will probably be OK with that.
-Chris DeVille is a contributing editor for The Post. Send him an e-mail at cd252802@ohiou.edu
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