javascripts 18.06.12: I feel Tria’s pain

I know what it’s like to be Vince Tria today. The blues festival organizer is looking at a disappointing turnout for an event the Vail-Leavit was relying on to put cash in its coffers. Instead, it lost money.

I’ve been involved in events that flopped. A couple of them put a hurting on the East End Arts Council, the organization that produced the events. I was on the board of directors — might have even been president of the board, I can’t recall — when Ray Charles canceled his gig as headliner of our two-day Riverhead Jazz Festival back in the early 1990s. The jazz festival was getting off the ground as an annual event and building a following. We were sure Ray Charles would put us on the map. But he bailed out on our contract and left us without a headliner for the second day of the festival with not a lot of lead time. We wound up booking country singer Crystal Gayle and changed the name of the event to the Music Festival. It was sparsely attended and we took a loss. It hurt, because it came at a time when the recession we were in meant tight purse-strings at foudnation and government funders. 

A year or two later, we booked Delbert McClinton. Another flop. And more financial pain. 

We had many successful music events, but one thing we learned — the hard way — is it’s much better to put on a free concert heavily supported by corporate sponsors. Another lesson is it’s risky to book big-name, high-cost acts. Final lesson: It’s rough to rely on a concert as a fundraiser in any case, especially one with a paid gate. There are so many variables that can affect attendance, with the weather being at the top of the list. 

Anyway, I feel Tria’s pain today. And I feel bad for the man. It’s a boatload of work to organize something like this, never mind doing it under the kind of scrutiny the event’s been under — and with the kind of controversy he’s been in the middle of, where the blues festival is concerned. And never mind doing all that at the age of 80! 

To my mind, events downtown are a good thing for the whole town. If they can help financially support a nonprofit operate a beautifully restored historic theater, all the better. 

I wish the personalities involved in all the back-and-forth would just put it all behind them and try to work together. You don’t have to like each other to get along and work together. 

There is just so much drama all the time. While the controversy may be good for pageviews on my website, personally, it gives me a headache. 

Denise Civiletti, reporter, editor, digital maven and former newspaper editor and publisher, lives and works in Riverhead. She vaguely remembers having a life away from electronic gadgets before being consumed by her role as a digital-hyperlocal-news-entrepreneur-pioneer — lol— publishing RiverheadLocal.com with her husband Peter Blasl.