Did you Hear? The Levitt will bring in 50 free concerts a year!

Well, if you were at the Levitt presentation last night for YPN (Young Professionals Network – Chamber) you would have had to be deaf not to know about the 50 concerts.

It was mentioned about a dozen times in the intro video, and afterwards the speakers kept bringing it up.

Trust me, I think this is fantastic, if it was realistic. Remember, that is 3-4 concerts per week, and unless those concerts are going to be on weeknights, they will conflict with a ton of other live music and other events outdoors downtown in the summer. Five to seven years ago, I would have said no way, but if you look at the calendar of events this summer for DT, you would be hard pressed not to find something going on both Friday and Saturday.

One person in attendance asked the question and the response was, “We promised we wouldn’t interfere with JazzFest and the Pavilion.” Uh, okay. What about all the other DT events and private promoters in the city? I take real issue with using my tax dollars to compete with private business.

Besides the 50 (professional) concerts a year dream/scheme, I just don’t buy we are going to be getting all of this for FREE. The city will have to kick in a butt-load of money. So why not just build the amphitheater and use if for the city without the ties to Levitt? Not only could we save money, we might even break even on the grounds with rental fees?

There is also the fact they are peddling we will be able to bring our own coolers (with beer in them). I’ll believe it when I see it. Like many things in life folks, nothing is for free.

Let’s face it, as I mentioned last night at the event, we don’t have many choices with the brownfield. Funny part is when I asked the presenters (very nicely) to explain what a brownfield was and why we are using it for an amphitheater the speaker said this, “Uh, that’s more of city question, they know more about it, I know there is 6″ of clay, uh, but we get 50 free concerts . . .” he never really explained it to the crowd. I wasn’t trying to get anyone into trouble, I just wanted the crowd to understand why this location was being used. But I guess you are not supposed to bring those things up at a fundraiser.