Plenty of musicians would play Rothbury if given the chance
The Rothbury Music Festival has become an increasingly big deal the last two years. In 2008 and 2009, the festival attracted tens of thousands of concertgoers and featured hundreds of acts from Snoop Dogg and Modest Mouse to Bob Dylan and MSTRKRFT.
It was a monstrous boon to local businesses in the village of Rothbury and surrounding Grant Township, was featured in a spread in July 2009’s Rolling Stone and was quickly becoming the next big thing in American concert destinations. But as reported in the Grand Rapids Press last week, event organizers Madison House Publicity and Anschutz Entertainment Group Live have canceled the four-day festival.
“A contributing factor in our decision is that, due to various artists’ recording and touring schedules, we now believe that timing will not allow for us to assemble the cutting-edge roster that everyone has come to expect,” read a statement posted to the Rothbury Festival’s Web site by the organizers.
The idea that out of the thousands of bands, big and small, that would be a potential fit for Rothbury, organizers could not find enough to fill out the festival is suspicious at best. Madison House and AEG expect the public to believe that, after successfully booking The Dead, Girl Talk and Femi Kuti at the same concert last year, absolutely nobody could come this year, and they threw up their arms in defeat?
Although a proposed township ordinance would have set ground rules for music festivals, Township Supervisor Roger Schmidt was reported by the local White Lake Beacon newspaper as saying it was not a factor, and would not have put any further restrictions on Rothbury.
Be that as it may, it is very unlikely that the only contributing factor to the event’s cancellation was the lack of a strong lineup. The easiest conclusion to draw is that AEG Live and Madison House, like many other large companies, are having money issues. AEG, in addition to doing Rothbury and several other festivals, books events for more than 70 venues worldwide — from the Royal Oak Music Theater to the Staples Center to the Shanghai Arena. Madison House does the publicity for at least five other music festivals.
Whether their other ventures are indeed successful, it is easy to imagine that in this economic climate, the companies just cannot afford to maintain all of their ventures, and something had to go, so they dumped Rothbury.
I honestly hope that AEG and Madison House told the truth, and Rothbury is canceled because of the worst confluence of scheduling conflicts known to man, and the festival returns as promised in 2011.
Because if that is not the truth, the outlook for a 2011 return is dim. The more of a fiscal issue this is, the less likely the companies will recover in time for next year.
