Why is the concert scene always so dead in Jacksonville?

[Tacachale]

The primary for our struggling concert scene is a lack of venues of diverse sizes and specialties. This causes us to miss many touring acts and strangles the local scene.

We have a number of small sized venues, though too few for a metro this size, and the ones we do have are spread all over town. We also have a terrific Arena that's very well used - but it holds 10,000 people. We comparatively little in between. We have a few with of a capacity between around 500-1000, and only a handful of venues that hold anything between 1000 and 10,000 people. And nearly all of our larger venues have serious drawbacks for live music programming. For example, the Florida Theater is amazing, but as an old movie theater with fixed seating, it's just not prime for modern amplified concerts, and the St. Augustine Amphitheater is remote even from St. Augustine. This is a shame, as venues of this size are preferred by more and more touring acts.

As I mention every chance I get, in the 1990s the city tried to build an amphitheater on the river that would have done a lot to plug the gaps in our local concert venues, but it was thwarted by backward interests. But there are some encouraging signs. The opening of several live music venues downtown (especially the re-opening of Underbelly) is hugely positive. Still, don't expect to see anything like Arcade Fire or a reunited Broken Social Scene play here without a decent upper-mid sized venue.

[fsquid]

Spent a good amount of time in the 90s at this venue.

[copperfiend]

The blue hairs across the river would never allow a real ampitheater being built at Met Park.

[duvaldude08]

From what I have been told and what I have noticed, Jacksonville is a very good market for alot of things. Primarly because we wait until the LAST SECOND to purchase tickets concerts, sporting events, etc. Most of huge concerts prefer them to be sold out or or atleast almost there by the time the day gets here. We have a notorious history of this . Things have been up significantly in recent years, but we still have a ways to go.

[The Compound]

Underbelly will be opening soon on Bay St. Im not sure how big their new space is though.

[ben says]

who the hell is this north miami/know growth ?!

[RockStar]

Nickelback? Well, there goes your argument...

Saw Elvis Costello last week.
Dick Dale on Sat.
Jane's Addiction in a couple.
Slash.
We just had Korn and every other trailer rock band.(see Nickelback).
Lemme see, Counting Crows tonight.

That's just off the top of my head.
I'm not delusional, I drive to other cities as well when bands I like don't stop here. (Foo Fighters) I wish more would. But to call the scene "always so dead" is just whining. Orlando will always have the pull not because the people who live there support every band, but there's enough tourists to fill it out; like playing Vegas. In the end though, the bands will play where they're paid to play. The concert promoters don't bring them to Jax (pay them) because they don't believe they can recoup their costs.

(Also, I think when you talk about the concert scene in Jax, the St. Aug amphitheater should be included. Driving 45 minutes to a venue isn't exactly packing up the car...)

[ben says]

Nickelback? Well, there goes your argument...

Saw Elvis Costello last week.
Dick Dale on Sat.
Jane's Addiction in a couple.
Slash.
We just had Korn and every other trailer rock band.(see Nickelback).
Lemme see, Counting Crows tonight.

That's just off the top of my head.
I'm not delusional, I drive to other cities as well when bands I like don't stop here. (Foo Fighters) I wish more would. But to call the scene "always so dead" is just whining. Orlando will always have the pull not because the people who live there support every band, but there's enough tourists to fill it out; like playing Vegas. In the end though, the bands will play where they're paid to play. The concert promoters don't bring them to Jax (pay them) because they don't believe they can recoup their costs.

(Also, I think when you talk about the concert scene in Jax, the St. Aug amphitheater should be included. Driving 45 minutes to a venue isn't exactly packing up the car...)

Amen

[I-10east]

(Also, I think when you talk about the concert scene in Jax, the St. Aug amphitheater should be included. Driving 45 minutes to a venue isn't exactly packing up the car...)

+1000

[copperfiend]

(Also, I think when you talk about the concert scene in Jax, the St. Aug amphitheater should be included. Driving 45 minutes to a venue isn't exactly packing up the car...)

I agree.

[Tacachale]

I totally agree, RockStar.

who the hell is this north miami/know growth ?!

He's a local environmentalist/growth opposer who frequently posts on Metro Jacksonville in a similar fashion to the Time Cube guy.

[Bridges]

For example, the Florida Theater is amazing, but as an old movie theater with fixed seating, it's just not prime for modern amplified concerts

I've noticed a weird thing at the past few shows I've seen at the Florida Theater.  No one knows how to act during the concert.  Pockets of people stand, pockets of people sit, and both sides argue.  I saw Jeff Tweedy call out the crowd for this.  I saw Tom Waits have to say, "Ok, I'm going to do the talking now".  I saw someone yell "fuck you hooch" to Fleet Foxes, so loud that the singer had to address it. 

I've seen thousands of concerts of all different types of bands, and I've never seen anything like the crowds in Jax at the Florida Theater.  It's like everyone feels that the concert is about them, and any pause in the music is a chance for them to yell their funny/witty/"freebird" comment or whatever.  It almost warrants a full sociological study, cause I can not figure out what is happening. 

[KenFSU]

From what I have been told and what I have noticed, Jacksonville is a very good market for alot of things. Primarly because we wait until the LAST SECOND to purchase tickets concerts, sporting events, etc. Most of huge concerts prefer them to be sold out or or atleast almost there by the time the day gets here. We have a notorious history of this . Things have been up significantly in recent years, but we still have a ways to go.

This is a really interesting point.

I'm a definite last-minute ticket buyer, for several reasons. First of all, my mood changes with the wind. What I feel like doing this weekend on Monday could be far different than what I feel like doing when Saturday rolls around. Secondly, there's really no reason to buy tickets in advance in Jacksonville, because very few things ever actually sell out. And thirdly, more often than not if I my wife and I walk up toward the box office on day of show, we usually get offered tickets from a familiar reseller for half of face value, at most.

In fact, one thing I've noticed about Jacksonville relative other places is that with very few exceptions, you rarely have to pay full ticket price for anything.

This is especially true for events at the Arena.

We were going to pay $100 for tickets for Walking with the Dinosaurs last year, and we got them for $20.

Routinely get $60 floor seats for the annual Trans-Siberian Orchestra show for $15.

Van Halen, Globetrotters, WWE, etc.

This phenomenon isn't necessarily exclusive to Jacksonville though.

I blame a fundamentally broken, predatory, completely inflexible Ticketmaster model more than anything else.  The secondary ticket market allows ticket prices to reach a natural level where supply equals demand, where Ticketmaster just arbitrarily sets two or three price tiers and calls it a day. Ticketmaster cries and complains about the secondary market (like Blockbuster with Red Box), and the NFL is even trying to find a way to take a cut of secondary market ticket sales, but they're just totally missing the point about the need for price flexibility relative local demand.

As an example, my wife likes Glee (I know, I know). Matthew Morrison from the show scheduled a concert at Jacksonville and subsequently canceled, likely due to low ticket sales. I entertained the idea of taking her until I went to buy tickets and they were $50 (!!!) each through Ticketmaster. Nobody in their right mind would pay that much for such a second-rate show, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have sold out at $15 a pop. Instead of allowing prices to naturally fall to a happy equlibrium level though, they just canceled the whole damn show. You see this is a lot in the smaller markets.

[tufsu1]

we'll be at the Counting Crows concert tonight....hold us a few seats at Dos Gators RockStar!

[Traveller]

I saw Eddie Vedder had to cancel his spring tour due to injury.  The Jacksonville shows have been rescheduled for Thanksgiving weekend.