Disappointing turnouts and low ticket sales for concerts force Traverse City promoter to scale back lineups for remaining shows. But the Charles Bradley concert for Saturday is still a go.
Impressive Venue, Low Attendance: The Eddy is located at the north edge of downtown Grand Rapids. (Photo/Tori Thomas)
The Eddy music festival in Grand Rapids is scaling back on its weekday and weeknight offerings.
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Despite a near-capacity crowd for its second-day lineup headlined by The Avett Brothers on Saturday, the dismal turnout for remaining shows at the tented outdoor venue at the north edge of downtown has forced organizers to drop acts originally booked for the 10-day, ArtPrize-related festival.
Low Turnout: Only a handful of folks showed up for Wednesday’s lunchtime show. (Photo/Local Spins)
Friday’s original headliner – Los Angeles-based Latin funk and hip-hop act Ozomatli – has been dropped from the lineup, with Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars and The Go Rounds still slated to play. Ticket prices have been dropped to $10 (from $20 in advance).
Porterhouse Presents, the Traverse City company hosting the festival, also has canceled Sunday’s finale featuring Beatles tribute band, 1964: The Tribute. The Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires concert will move forward and fans of Local Spins can get half-price tickets by using the code, “TheEddy,” in the promo code line for tickets. Pumping up the bill for Saturday will be Michigan’s own Joe Hertler & The Rainbow Seekers and Grand Rapids soul-rock band Vox Vidorra.
In response to several changes in the The Eddy’s performance schedule for the final weekend including removing Ozomatli from the bill, promoter Sam Porter said, “We are learning what works and doesn’t work with the ArtPrize audience and have had to adjust.”
Thursday’s show featuring mostly local and regional acts also was shuffled, with rock/pop’s The Outer Vibe dropped from the lineup. Instead, The Mike + Ruthy Band, Billy Strings and Los Angeles DJ Ana Sia will perform. The Eddy also has dropped some free daytime entertainment from the roster; only four or five people showed up for a lunchtime show on Wednesday.
Refunds are available at the box office for ticket-buyers for those who were bought tickets for Friday’s Ozomatli show, “or we can take off the difference since Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars is amazing,” said Porter.
A clearly troubled and weary Porter of Porterhouse Presents told Local Spins on Wednesday that disappointingly low ticket sales are responsible for the lineup changes, perhaps caused by unpredictable weather and competition from other events during ArtPrize.
While The Avett Brothers concert “was a home run,” drawing 3,500 people on Saturday for an energetic, crowd-pleasing show, Porter said everything else has been a challenge.
Home Run: The Avett Brothers drew a huge crowd on Saturday. (Photo/Anna Sink)
“Nobody wants to see things change. Moving things around and making those decisions is hard,” said Porter, noting that his team has worked hard, long hours to try to make the inaugural festival succeed. “People aren’t buying tickets. We’re at the position to make some hard calls.”
Confusion about the lineup and poorly communicated information on the festival’s website has frustrated some fans and ticket buyers who’ve raised questions about The Eddy on Facebook and elsewhere.
One band also complained about being taken off the schedule early in the week at the “very last minute.” But Porter insisted they’re trying to do the best they can under trying circumstances and striving to do what’s best for artists, even moving a scheduled performer, Traverse City bluegrass guitar phenom Billy Strings, across the street to SpeakEZ Lounge early Wednesday night to provide a better turnout for the show.
“We’re just trying to support the artist and do what’s best for the low traffic we’ve had for these free days,” Porter said. “I’m just trying to spread the love and try to find the best options for the artists.”
He noted that this was a first-year event. “It was an experiment,” Porter said of The Eddy, which he hopes can return on more solid footing in 2016.
Copyright 2015, Spins on Music LLC
Event information was hard to find. The lack of promotion did not help either.
Great idea, I’d like to see it happen next year, different time of year would be good. 3 or 4 day event similar to Rock the Rapids.
I am a production manager for Porterhouse and wanted to chime in and share our work. I canceled the band on Tuesday in a short email but was not trying to be unprofessional. The team was in the trenches trying to sustain and support all the artists best options for a show and due to very low weekday traffic we had to let artists know last minute that it was not working. We spent many hours supporting them, marketing and booking local talent and it is not fun to cancel. It was the first show Porterhouse canceled in 17 years supporting the arts. Sam and crew are amazing people and work so hard to make the best of any challenge like we faced. I watched us dig deep in our resources to support over 200 artists for this event and we felt strong purpose in activating an unused green space driving ideas for future cultural and economic opportunities for the Grand Rapids arts community. This should be celebrated and all come down and dance with us for Charles Bradley and Sierra Leone one of my favorite African based reggae world beats bands on the planet with an amazing story. Anyways, below is some of the email I sent to the band referred in this email and felt it was worth sharing.
–,
I saw you quote in Local Spin and wanted to again apologize as we were honestly looking out for the artists and your best interest since we had literally no one that day for lunch or the two days prior and that was why we cancelled at 4PM as we waited till the last minute. Please come to any show this weekend as our guests and Sam wants to extend this to the entire band as he really cares about all relations and this event kicked our ass. We bleed for the arts and really appreciate your time and support to help us attempt this arts experiment. It is never perfect and we made mistakes trying to communicate to many. We were buried that day in making tough decisions to cancel our main headliners so we can continue supporting thousands of artists annually all over MI. We appreciate it. Cheers, Johnnie
I think with some better promoting, this could have been a huge hit. Everyone I have talked to thought the tent was just set up for the Avett Brothers. Hanging informational posters (with times, website, etc) in different music/ High traffic venues could have helped. I saw the Eddy poster with all of the bands on it, but was confused as to if it was just a one day thing or what. It’s a bummer all these acts had to be cancelled. But, Billy Strings & Mark Lavengood rocked the Speak-EZ 🙂
I really think the promotion was a huge issue. Looking up information about this venue and its events was too difficult. I haven’t personally had any information about this show in my facebook feed…until now. I knew it existed, but didn’t search out the information and it wasn’t thrown in my face like so many of the other downtown events. People can’t attend what they don’t know about. Make this a more user friendly event and the draw will be a lot better. Create a facebook event. Invite EVERYONE. The Eddy needs a brand. It has to be treated as a destination for the public and it has to be easy for them to figure it out. Get the social media campaigns going. Be clear and concise. Make sure everyone knows where and what is going on! I’d love to see this work next year and really think with a few tweaks and more social media marketing, it could be a huge success!