Linda Caillouet is wrong
Friday, June 11, 2010
Linda Caillouet is wrong 'Movies in the Park' vs. 'River Flicks'
In her "Paper Trails" column in today's Demazette, Linda Caillouet calls me out for my post earlier in the week about the weird sibling rivalry between Little Rock and North Little Rock that's led to NLR starting a its own free movie series almost directly across the river from Little Rock's "Movies in the Park."
In typical "Paper Trails" fashion it's off base in all kinds of ways.
Caillouet quotes this from my item:
As much as everyone loves free movie series, this is some weird sister city rivalry at work. "Movies in the Park" is an institution. If North Little Rock wants to create its own family friendly event, it (or more precisely the promoters who use its park space for free) should come up with some fresh idea.
Then she tries on mock outrage:
Really?!? What about that copycat retro drive-in movie series at Arkansas Flag and Banner in downtown Little Rock... The nerve! How dare they?!?
This, of course, is a wholly different animal. It's, as she mentions, a drive-in. It costs ($5 per person, or $20 per car). And it's aimed at grown folks. The line-up includes "Night of the Living Dead" and "Sex Madness." So, too, is Dave Elswick's classic movie series at Market Street, which is free to kids and only $5 for adults.
"River Flicks" and "Movies in the Park," on the other hand, are the exact same idea. They're each a free, family-oriented outdoor movie series held on the river. If not for last night's rain out of "River Flicks," they were scheduled to screen the same movie, "The Blind Side," within six days of each other. And, again, these events are happening almost directly across the river, albeit on different nights.
Posted by Lindsey Millar on | Permalink | Comments (15)
Monday, February 15, 2010
Linda Caillouet is wrong Paper Trails' stupid war on Riverfest
With Riverfest peeking out over the horizon, look out for months of ill-informed, crotchety bitching from Democrat-Gazette columnist Linda Caillouet leading up to the festival. It's apparently a pet project of the writer, who pens the "Paper Trails" column three times a week on the front page of the Arkansas section, where she covers a lot of the same sort of topics we do on this blog, but with more focus on local Ellen DeGeneres look-alikes and the Duggars.
Today, she revives an especially ridiculous Riverfest gripe (subscription required) that she harped on about last year: The rising cost of Riverfest amidst the "continuing economic crisis."
Her column follows a news report in the daily last week that came on the heels of my post about Riverfest effectively abandoning North Little Rock as a primary staging area for entertainment. That Dem-Gaz news story buried the lede in favor of the price increase angle. But the implications of the price increase weren't fully sussed for Paper Trails! (And she doesn't mention the NLR move at all).
Today, she writes:
...each year for the last six years, the price for either the advance or at-the-gate tickets increased, but 2009 marked the first time, at least since 2005, that both prices increased simultaneously...
In the early 1990s, attendees paid a mere $1. For the 14 years before then, the event was free.
And in the personal opinion of this columnist, who moved to Little Rock in 1991 and has regularly attended Riverfest ever since, the quality of musical acts steadily improved during the mid to late-1990s but has since been on a downward slide with less up-and-coming or crowd-drawing, red-hot-right now musical acts.
So first, to be clear what we're talking about, this year, tickets to the three-day festival, which usually features at least a dozen name headliners, cost $15 in advance or $30 at the gate. That's a $2.50 increase in advance tickets and a $5 increase for those at the gate. For a three-day festival. Bloodsuckers!
For everything else, I asked Riverfest director DeAnna Korte for a response. Here's what she said in email:
This isn't the early '90s. What did gas, milk and bread cost in the early '90s? Riverfest's expenses rise along with everything else. If the quality has gone down since then, why does attendance increase each year? If Linda was a "reporter," she would do her research on the value of our event compared to others in the region and across the country. Compare our pricing to one day at the zoo or a two hour movie. Riverfest is basically $5 a day in advance and only $10 a day at the gate. She also needs to check out the pricing of the "new" acts out there. I would be happy to tell her - tried for Kings of Leon but at $350,000 for an isolated date - imagine what our ticket prices would be. That's over half of my entire budget.
She also added that Riverfest has allotted 70,000 advance tickets, which go on-sale in April throughout Central Arkansas. That's 10,000 more than last year. So if you want an advance ticket and don't wait to long, you're pretty much assured of getting one.
I'd also add that anyone who thinks that Riverfest should be getting Memphis in May-type acts doesn't grasp the disparity in budget. It's easy to poke fun at all the nostalgia acts the festival brings in (and I always do), but record attendance numbers in recent years — around 250,000 in 2008 and 2009 — tell the real story: Names like Willie Nelson and Bobby Brown and The B-52s pack in the crowds. Too, in recent years, the festival's done well with rising country talent (Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert) and big modern rock acts (Hinder, Flyleaf).
UPDATE: Arkansas Business' Sam Eifling has a piece today about Riverfest and Memphis and May.
Headliners devour most of the $600,000 to $650,000 music budget, out of the nonprofit festival's $3 million total budget. Not only does the festival have to lure acts to Arkansas on that budget, it also competes with the richer Memphis in May, which protects its higher ticket prices ($60 and up for a three-day pass) by forbidding big acts from also playing the cheaper Riverfest ($25 to $30 for a three-day pass).
"People ask, ' Why don't you bring in Dave Matthews?'" said DeAnna Korte, Riverfest's executive director. Her reply: "Because Dave Matthews is half a million dollars."
Posted by Lindsey Millar on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, April 6, 2009
Linda Caillouet is wrong Half-price Riverfest tickets now on-sale
See a complete list of participating stores here.
P.S.: Loved reading, in Linda Caillouet's "Paper Trails" column today in the Dem-Gaz about the lady from Monticello, who drove 100 miles to Little Rock on Friday to pick up advance tickets and left empty handed because they weren't yet fully available as advertised. For shame. Because, you know, it totally makes sense to drive 200 miles (round trip) to save $12.50 (or even $12.50 multiplied by the size of the lady's family). Especially on the first day of sales for a festival that last year accommodated more than 250,000.
Thanks for being a voice of the people, Paper Trails.
Posted by Lindsey Millar on | Permalink | Comments (2)
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Linda Caillouet is wrong 'Paper Trails' vs. 607
A FAMILY AFFAIR? The winner of the free weekly newspaper Arkansas Times’ recent Musicians Showcase competition gets to perform at Riverfest in Little Rock during the Memorial Day weekend. The winner? Local rapper 607, known to often grab himself and utter pretty profane profanities. Note to parents of young children — if you’re considering attending this year’s “family festival” with the kiddies, consider yourself warned.
After I spent a few minutes trying to figure "pretty profane profanities" as opposed "really profane profanities" or just "profane profanities," I settled on "inane inanities" and like actual reporters are known to do, I called 607 to get a reaction. The local rapper said, "Riverfest is going to be totally clean, just like last year." He'd not gotten a call from Ms. Caillouet, who, if she'd done even a few minutes worth of research, solely in her paper's archive, could've expanded past her caricature pretty easily. He's been featured in the Style section easily a dozen times in long profiles and stories on the Hip-Hop school, the after school mentoring and teaching program he helps with.
Update: You can email Calliouet at lcalliouet@arkanasonline.com.
Posted by Lindsey Millar on | Permalink | Comments (8)
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