Let's revisit a topic I have written about many, many times over the years. It came up again over the weekend on social media, and judging by the number of responses, it is perhaps worth revisiting. The question: "Why aren't there concerts at McKenzie Arena anymore?"
First of all, there are some, just not nearly as many. In fact, I got a call from the arena folks to announce that Five Finger Death Punch will play there Nov. 23. But there are certainly not as many as we had there in the '80s and '90s.
Lots of people chimed in with their reasons for this, offering every opinion from the fact that the arena isn't a great place to see a live concert to the fact that it doesn't sell alcohol. For the most part, many of those reasons are true in their own way, or maybe it's better to say they have all added up to change in the touring model.
There just aren't as many tours out there being booked in arenas. There are some, of course - Cher, Justin Timberlake, Garth Brooks and acts of that level are doing arena shows in major markets. But very few go to places like Chattanooga, and if they do, it is more likely to be at an outdoor festival.
Barry CourterStaging a big arena show is expensive, and some venues, such as McKenzie Arena, don't have beer or parking sales options to negotiate over with promoters. And the bigger promoters tend to only go to markets where they have had success.
What we are seeing today are the handful of big shows, like mentioned above, and the relatively smaller ones like we see at the Tivoli, Walker Theatre or Songbirds, where artists come in solo or with a small band. This keeps their costs down.
By the way, David Carroll has done us all a favor by compiling a list of the shows that played McKenzie back in the day. You can see it at http://chattanoogaradiotv.com/general/finally-the-complete-list-every-utc-mckenzie-arena-concert/.
McKenzie Arena is hardly an ideal place to see a concert, but man, when I go back over that list, I saw some pretty good ones there. Being able to see Tina Turner, Itzak Perlman, Run DMC with The Beastie Boys, Jazzy Jeff, JJ Fad, Public Enemy and Salt N Pepa, Shania Twain, and George Jones with Merle Haggard and Conway Twitty was pretty great.
And I have to admit to being surprised that we averaged about two or three a month during non-basketball season. For reference, the arena hosted four shows in 2016, and one each in '17 and '18, per the list.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.