I've covered fundamental facility issues, Tuna, and the current season in the past three days. Now a bit more about programming. First of all, it's a very complicated process that is done over a year in advance in many cases. So it's hard to always get what you want. As I discussed yesterday, that's especially true with theatrical acts. But even with musical acts where you know the artists who are generally available and you can just pick them out and try to work out a date there are significant challenges. The greatest of them is financial, but money concerns aren't the only ones. Artists can fall through or come through at the last minute. So it can be difficult to balance a quality diverse lineup in any given year.

When people say that the WPAC's programming "lacks diversity," I suspect they mean that they want more popular music or comedy acts on stage. It's obviously not actually a critique of the diversity of the current lineup; it's very diverse. But the point is certainly taken that there are not a great deal of pop music or comedy shows on stage at the Hippodrome. The main reason for this is that almost every time it is tried it fails miserably. It's something that sounds good, and that people say they'll get behind, but experience teaches us differently. Take the recent One Night of Queen for example. No, it's not a true pop music show, but a tribute show to Queen for a town with lots of Baby Boomers who say they want music that they grew up on should have sold more than 200 tickets, shouldn't it? Even Ted Nugent didn't sell out the Hippodrome the last time he played there. The Chieftains didn't sell out the Hippodrome. Jim Brickman didn't sell out the Hippodrome. So what encouragement does the WPAC have to pursue these kinds of musical acts whose costs run between $20,000 and $80,000?

This is where my previous mention of "one-night-only math" comes in useful. Popular music acts cost money. First of all, the biggest names won't even play venues that have less than 3,000 seats. So there's no point speculating about the viability of presenting Alison Krauss, Taylor Swift, John Legend, or John Mayer. Most of the artists that you'd recognize and want to see who might come to a smaller venue like James Taylor, Aaron Neville, Bobby McFerrin, Rufus Wainwright, or Natalie Cole don't perform for less than about $40,000. Most are more in the $60k - $80k range. Please, go ahead and divide $40,000 by 929. Even a complete sellout requires an average ticket price of $43. But we know at least two things that we have to consider. The first is that every seat cannot be sold. The touring show gets a certain number of comps, the theatre has to give comps to sponsors, and some balcony seats just won't sell. So reduce that number of profitable seats to 700. That average price just went up to $57. The second is that the low estimate of $40k is only the artist fee. It doesn't cover the expenses of production which include stagehands, speakers, equipment, microphones, rigging, staging, and band costs. Let's conservatively say that's another $10k. Then you have to take care of the artists with hotels and hospitality. Another $1k. And you have to market the show. Very conservatively, we'll say another $6k. (More on marketing later.) So we're now up to $57k. We're now at an average ticket price of $81. And remember, that's an average. You can't sell upstairs seats at the same price as the downstairs ones. So orchestra seats are going to go for about $100. Are you, or is anyone, going to pay $100 for a seat at the Hippodrome? I didn't think so. But that's what it takes to just break even. There's not even any profit in that formula. Staff hasn't been paid, utilities haven't been paid, insurance hasn't been paid, and maintenance hasn't been paid. Not a pretty picture, is it?

So some say that smaller names should be booked. Maybe try to get up-and-coming musical acts from Austin or Nashville. Believe it or not, this was tried in the past. Dave Barnes, an indie hero of Nashville who enjoys great popularity in colleges like Baylor played a show in 2006 that was well-promoted at Baylor and around town and only drew 300 people. I tried to get interest in Eisley. They're a Texas-grown indie rock act that tours all over the country. I couldn't get even a whiff of interest in them from Wacoans. I could have gotten MuteMath, who now sells out arenas and is touring to support 30 Seconds to Mars, for $3000 back in 2006. I used email, Facebook, and word-of-mouth to try to generate interest and couldn't even get 20 people to say they'd be interested in coming to the show. I brought Shaun Groves, a Baylor grad who had a #1 hit on Christian radio a few years ago, in to do a show and 20 people showed up. I tried rock, I tried indie-rock, I tried Christian music, I tried gospel music. People in Waco never supported it. It seems they like the idea of having the option of going to see live music better than actually going to see live music.

Honestly, the churches were the biggest disappointments of all the audiences in Waco. Right after I started at the Hippodrome I surveyed everyone I could think of to see what they wanted to see. Every church employee I talked to, especially the youth ministers, all said that they needed shows they could take youth group trips to. They wanted Christian music shows. They were adamant about it and assured me that they would bring their entire youth groups. So I booked Shaun, Bebo Norman, and John Michael Talbot. I think between the three concerts there was a total of 500 people in attendance. When I came back to the youth leaders they said, "Organizing a trip was hard. We'll do better next time." After the loss that we incurred that first season, there was certainly not going to be a "next time" for Christian music shows.

So how about an up-and-coming musical act? Maybe one out of Austin or Nashville? First you have the problem of what to charge. Can you charge $20 for a band or artist most people don't know? I doubt it, but let's say you could. For a show that cost a total of only $10,000 that would somehow include all production, hospitality, and marketing, you would need 500 people to show up just to break even. Do you seriously believe that 500 people in Waco would show up for someone they've never heard of when 500 people didn't show up for Take 6?

No matter how many times I try to explain that the balance of popularity and affordability is precarious, no one seems to want to listen. The easiest way to say it is that if they're popular enough to sell-out we can't afford them, and if we can afford them then they're not popular enough to sell-out. It just doesn't work. If it were profitable to do popular music concerts in Waco, don't you think we'd have some competition from for-profit promoters? The Hippodrome was available to rent with full services for a concert to include ticketing and technical set-up for between $1200 and $2000. With a price that low, if there was money to be made in it why couldn't I get anyone to rent the theatre to give it a try? For the same reason that I was unwilling after a while to keep trying it: It's simply not profitable.

Many of the same rules above apply for comedy as well. How willing are you to pay $20 for a seat at the Hippodrome to hear a comedian you've never heard of? And that only breaks even if 500 people are willing to pay for someone they've never heard of and that comedian's show can be completely put together for under $10k. Neither Carlos Mencia nor Gabriel Iglesias nor Gallagher sold out the Hippodrome the last time they came. Rickey Smiley's show got cancelled by the promoter who had rented the Hippodrome on stage before it could start because there were only about 50 people in the audience. And those aren't small names. Major names in comedy routinely draw upwards of $50,000 for a show. I was negotiating with Jeff Dunham to come to the Hippodrome when the Coliseum got wind of my plans and outbid us for the show. They did the same thing with George Lopez. It didn't matter that the Coliseum was a terrible venue for comedy, they trumped us mathematically and I couldn't change the math. I couldn't make a larger financial offer; it was already going to be nearly impossible to turn a profit on those shows at the lower price that I was offering.

I hope you can begin to appreciate that when people say things like, "Bring more rock music," or "Do more comedy shows," or "find indie artists out of Austin," it's not as if these are ideas that hadn't already occurred to us. Nor are they ventures that we haven't already fully considered and vetted. There's a very good reason that such events aren't on the calendar. Wacoans didn't support them in the past, they didn't give any indication that their support would somehow change in the future, and even if they did it was still bad business financially.

Tomorrow I'll address the criticisms about a lack of promotions, marketing, advertising, and getting the word out about shows.