I'm starting to get ticked off by the number of artist that just bypass the 4th largest city in these United States while on tour. Yeah we get the John Mayers...Madonnna's but the smaller acts are generally a no show. Gregory Porter, Mos Def, Noisettes, Jamie Lidell and Collum...even Solange skipped her hometown of Houston during her recent stint.

What da F*&K is going ON! Is our money not green enough? Freakin Houston is a meltin pot compared to some of these cities...a very diverse audience. We should be a destination city. More strip clubs per capita than NY. More billboards than LA. Less violence than Chicago..with better weed (so they tell me). I'm just not understanding!!!!!!!

[Edited 4/16/13 20:55pm]

Most acts like the biggie cities where they can have 2 night concerts and get biggie bux.

Money, probably.

Most acts would probably only tour New Orleans, Atlanta, Charlotte and Miami.

I think it depends on who's buying their albums/cds/downloads. The artists and promoters get data that tells them about their sales in a particular area and if they don't think the sales are good enough, they won't go.

Also with Texas (I'm in Dallas), they tend to look at us as a "state" and if they do dates in Dallas, Austin or San Antonio, they feel fans can travel the 3 to 5 hours to see a concert. The only real exception is SXSW. If it wasn't for SXSW, a lot of acts would hardly ever get to Austin.

Dallas gets a lot of big and small acts because a lot of the nationaly syndicated programs come from here. We have ABC Radio (now Citadel), Cumulius and Salem Networks (to name a few). That's why if you hear someone like Fantasia or Chrissette Michelle promoting their song on Tom Joyner, you will also hear them on Doug Banks and the other programs that are within the same area.

popgodazipa said:

We should be a destination city. More strip clubs per capita than NY.

[Edited 4/17/13 11:57am]

daPrettyman said:

I think it depends on who's buying their albums/cds/downloads. The artists and promoters get data that tells them about their sales in a particular area and if they don't think the sales are good enough, they won't go.

Also with Texas (I'm in Dallas), they tend to look at us as a "state" and if they do dates in Dallas, Austin or San Antonio, they feel fans can travel the 3 to 5 hours to see a concert. The only real exception is SXSW. If it wasn't for SXSW, a lot of acts would hardly ever get to Austin.

Dallas gets a lot of big and small acts because a lot of the nationaly syndicated programs come from here. We have ABC Radio (now Citadel), Cumulius and Salem Networks (to name a few). That's why if you hear someone like Fantasia or Chrissette Michelle promoting their song on Tom Joyner, you will also hear them on Doug Banks and the other programs that are within the same area.

Yeah. That just reminded me of what you said about Patti getting pissed no one was buying her record in Dallas despite the fact she had a show there!

I think it is mostly financial. When I was touring in an alt rock band during the 90s, gigs in the South were generally kind of tough. Low turnouts, not very good guarantees. Our kind of thing was just not as popular down there.

It's not cause we didn't like it there. Hey anytime you get to go someplace guaranteed to be warm when on the road in March or November, it's a good thing. And we had good shows in some places. But it was tough to justify spending several weeks playing there when you could go Chapel Hill - Atlanta - New Orleans - Houston and be done with it. You'd play to more people and make better money adding dates in the Northeast, you could spend a week within a 2 hour drive of NYC and play every night.

I'm surprised you say Houston doesn't get gigs, we played there almost every time we went out. Always Austin but usually Houston too.

Timmy84 said:

daPrettyman said:

I think it depends on who's buying their albums/cds/downloads. The artists and promoters get data that tells them about their sales in a particular area and if they don't think the sales are good enough, they won't go.

Also with Texas (I'm in Dallas), they tend to look at us as a "state" and if they do dates in Dallas, Austin or San Antonio, they feel fans can travel the 3 to 5 hours to see a concert. The only real exception is SXSW. If it wasn't for SXSW, a lot of acts would hardly ever get to Austin.

Dallas gets a lot of big and small acts because a lot of the nationaly syndicated programs come from here. We have ABC Radio (now Citadel), Cumulius and Salem Networks (to name a few). That's why if you hear someone like Fantasia or Chrissette Michelle promoting their song on Tom Joyner, you will also hear them on Doug Banks and the other programs that are within the same area.

Yeah. That just reminded me of what you said about Patti getting pissed no one was buying her record in Dallas despite the fact she had a show there!

bobzilla77 said:

I think it is mostly financial. When I was touring in an alt rock band during the 90s, gigs in the South were generally kind of tough. Low turnouts, not very good guarantees. Our kind of thing was just not as popular down there.

It's not cause we didn't like it there. Hey anytime you get to go someplace guaranteed to be warm when on the road in March or November, it's a good thing. And we had good shows in some places. But it was tough to justify spending several weeks playing there when you could go Chapel Hill - Atlanta - New Orleans - Houston and be done with it. You'd play to more people and make better money adding dates in the Northeast, you could spend a week within a 2 hour drive of NYC and play every night.

I'm surprised you say Houston doesn't get gigs, we played there almost every time we went out. Always Austin but usually Houston too.

I think a lot of it has to do with the audience the music artists popgodazipa follows.

popgodazipa said:

I'm starting to get ticked off by the number of artist that just bypass the 4th largest city in these United States while on tour. Yeah we get the John Mayers...Madonnna's but the smaller acts are generally a no show. Gregory Porter, Mos Def, Noisettes, Jamie Lidell and Collum...even Solange skipped her hometown of Houston during her recent stint.

What da F*&K is going ON! Is our money not green enough? Freakin Houston is a meltin pot compared to some of these cities...a very diverse audience. We should be a destination city. More strip clubs per capita than NY. More billboards than LA. Less violence than Chicago..with better weed (so they tell me). I'm just not understanding!!!!!!!

[Edited 4/16/13 20:55pm]

New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, & Miami have stole Houston's thunder, it seems. Maybe it because Houston is not closer to the water like those cities I've mention.