Somebody forgot to tell the record crowds at the CMA Music Festival/Fan Fair that country album sales are continuing their downward plunge. Anyone walking around downtown that steamy week couldn’t help but notice that this place was packed, even though a few weeks earlier most of the festival sites were underwater due to the 2010 Flood, even though the economy remains in recession, and even thought the few big-time country retail partners remaining - Wal-Mart, for instance - are shrinking our shelf space to nearly nothing in their gigantic stores. It was a similar story at Bonnaroo and at BamaJam. Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, Jeff Beck, and John Prine were among those who packed ‘em in at Manchester, while Kenny Chesney, Jamey Johnson, and Hank Williams Jr. did likewise at BamaJam in promoter Ronnie Gilley’s hometown of Enterprise, Ala., and Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, and Martina McBride helped delight the sweltering hordes in Nashville. Here are a couple of points about all of this fascinating stuff: 1). The fans are still out there, and they still have money to spend on music; 2). Festivals can be a gigantic opportunity for you and your artists; 3). Radio can be involved with festivals but sometimes isn’t; and 4). Your performance in live shows and at meet-and-greets is more important now than ever. Some radio folks in Alabama were disappointed that more country radio stations weren’t onsite at BamaJam and didn’t promote it better. That’s a very valid complaint. The relatively new BamaJam gets far less radio and media coverage than the more established CMA Music Festival, but its artist roster is as strong as anyone’s. Kenny Chesney, for instance, chose to play BamaJam and didn’t play the CMA Music Festival. As we all know, touring can often make or break you or your artist financially. Almost no artists can survive just on the income from their album sales now, and radio promotion is so unbelievably expensive that every spin you get costs a boatload of promo bucks. But we still hear the horror stories of stars acting like idiots either onstage or during the vital meet-and-greets. One multi-platinum artist recently quit in the middle of his meet-and-greet with just 30 fans and listeners there. After No. 19, the artist simply left and said he wasn’t meeting anyone else. Maybe he shouldn’t have bothered. Other artists gripe about everything to the concert promoters, in many case ticking off radio and the promoters so much that the promoters pledge to never invite that artist back to that town. Then we also have the male artists looking more like Grunge acts then country stars. They’re sporting the Brad Pitt-style, ZZ Top beards and dressing like refugees from drunk tanks or homeless shelters. These guys seem to forget that more than 70% of country fans and listeners are women, and women notice everything about an artist, especially what he or she is wearing. The ladies I’ve talked to hate this new trend. In the Grunge days of artists like Nirvana, or in the 1970s when fans almost expected their heroes to show up on stage wasted, artists could get away with that stuff. No more. Remember, gang: Nearly every phone is a camera these days. An hour after you step off stage, your concert or club set highlights or lowlights are posted on YouTube. Odds are you and your artist won’t make a penny off this, but if the artist has staggered around the stage drunk or insulted fans, that YouTube video can cost you dearly. Look at Whitney Houston as proof positive (or proof negative) of this. She was a gigantic star not that long ago, both at radio and on records but also acting in top movies including The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner. But sadly, her recent misadventures during a European concert tour have now made Whitney more of a Web sideshow than a radio superstar. Our advice: Start your planning for the Summer 2011 festivals now. It’s never too early to contact the promoters and festival organizers. Festivals, carnivals, county and state fairs all ramp up in the summer, and a dynamite show can generate all kinds of action at your merch table, as the fans buy your CDs, hats, T-shirts, fotos, and other assorted goodies. And when you get a chance to do a meet-and-greet or a radio live remote, treat your fans and treat radio with the kind of ultimate respect you’d want to be treated with by your own favorite artists. None of us can feel 100% at every show, every meet-and-greet, and every live remote – but the fans shouldn’t be able to tell the difference. The real pros treat their fans as friends, and treat radio as their most trusted and powerful ally. There’s a great expression, with application both in life and in showbiz: “You only get one chance to make a first impression.”

- - - - UPCOMING EVENTS - - - -

Oct. 3-5 IEBA Conference, Hilton Nashville.
Nov. 16 – CMA Awards, Bridgestone Arena, Nashville.