WMZQ Country Fest-Shows Impact of the Recession

I am a country music fan, not old country music but the more modern soft rock country music, that of Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Taylor Swift, to name a few. These entertainers are some of the ones that maintain a fan base with the fans in mind. They maintain a cost for their tickets that are usually very reasonable. For the past seven years I have been purchasing a Mega Ticket for the WMZQ summer country music venue. I pay a little over a grand for two tickets for six concerts and that is reasonable, under $200.00 for two tickets per concert, I have always considered this reasonable. I and my son go to these concerts throughout the summer to enjoy the music, the food, and the company of our friends. It is a way to relax and enjoy ourselves, while not being to far from home.

Last Saturday kicked off the summer concert series. In all of our previous years this concert series has always, always packed the seats. The traffic is horrible, but the people are extremely friendly. This year however, as I arrived at Nissan Pavilion in Virginia, I found that I was navigating through the concourse a bit easier. I noticed a significant difference. There wasn't the mass of people, jostling for position in the concession lines as there had been in previous years. The beer lines were not twenty people deep.

My son, Rob, and I took our seats in the Pavilion. I greeted our friends and settled in to hear and watch the show. The show started around 3:30 and there were five different bands performing. The Pavilion has always in previous years been packed and noisy. This year was not the same. The Pavilion has four sets of seating, the Orchestra, which we sit in, premier seating in section 100, and Gold and Silver seating in sections 200 and 300. I looked behind me as beach balls were being hit through the crowd. To my amazement there were two sections in section 300 that were bereft of fans. Each section holds approximately 300 people and there were two entire sections without people. These seats are part of the Mega Tickets Plans and they were absolutely empty. I was really a bit shocked. The lawn area was packed, as usual, the ticket price was around $25.00 each. However the premier seating was empty.

As I was commenting on the lack of people under the Pavilion, Jack our friend, turned to me and told me that his wife was laid off. She had worked for the same company as a designer for almost 30 years, then he told me that on Friday he was pulled into his supervisor's office and was informed that he too was being laid off. This man is 63 years old and he had worked for 34 years with the same Real Estate Company. Thirty four years...it's sad. We talked about the loss of jobs and how the higher paid employees with longevity are being downsized and let go. I had never been in a downsizing before, my career was with the Department of Defense and we were never involved with the tribulations of the civilian workforce. With Jack informing me that he, a senior representative, from his office was being let go, the recession hit home. I realized then that there were a great number of people, who used to have disposable income to use for entertainment, now had lost that luxury. These people are my peers. We are relatively in a fair financial setting. I get a very decent retirement check each month from Civil Service, my husband still works and brings home a lucrative paycheck, our house is paid in full, my son just purchased his first home, we have some rental homes that we have maintained throughout the years. Most of our friends, we thought, were just as financially stable as we were, it was a shock to say the least. Jack's lay off hit close to home, if this could affect one of my friends, it could happen to my son or my husband. Jack told me that he had to seek employment and it was heartbreaking, he's 63 years old and he has to look for work, I had not realized that my family had it fairly good, thank the Good Lord.

The performers, each and every one of them, expressed their thanks and appreciation to the fans that were in attendance. I think these performers are as frightened by the lack of a sold out venue that I was. I am not used to this. Do not get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the concert and was glad that we could afford to go. However my thoughts returned to all the people who used to go, spend some money, enjoy themselves, and relax for a little while. It's sad.