Related articles:

Curtis McCrary, Rialto GM

Other articles by Cathalena E. Burch:

Lawrence tops Fest bill With bus, Bonnett's set for the big time The future of folk A fitting day for superdad: Cosby delivers superb humor Arizona Opera slashes management, cuts pay Brisket, BBQ are a family affair Are you ready for some Williams? Our favorite TV dad here for Father's Day Thousands in donations assure more parks concerts in the fall Aisle seats: Arts picks for the week

Health Care
Sierra Tucson
Eating Disorders Program Coordinator General
A1 Communications
Cable Techs Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Dental
Southern Arizona Endodontics
Dental Assistant

Rialto Theatre booking guru Curtis McCrary is nervous.

It's mid-November and he has few concerts on the books for December and January.

Those are traditionally slower months for concert promoters. But it is especially dismal this year thanks to the financial and economic crisis.

"This is going to be a tough two months ahead of us," McCrary said. "It doesn't seem like February, March and April, the spring, is shaping up to counter that.

"I'm worried," he confessed. "Generally speaking, I should have a pretty good idea what February will be like and I just don't."

Declines in concert attendance are becoming the rule at other Tucson venues. Shows that should have been sellouts were lucky to sell at half-capacity. Recent examples include country superstar Alan Jackson, who nearly filled the 5,000-seat Casino del Sol AVA when it opened eight years ago, only attracted 2,800 to his September concert. Rocker Sheryl Crow drew just 2,700 a month earlier.

Despite the low numbers, Casino del Sol CEO Wendell Long calls the AVA concert season, which runs from May through October, a success.

"We've been actually doing very well in our shows," he said. "We attribute that to the idea that people want to escape the economic doldrums."

The Rialto, which operates year-round, is trying to figure out the impact of the current financial climate.

"The ability of someone to decide to spend $30 or $60 or $70 for an evening of entertainment is directly impacted by the economic downturn," said Doug Biggers, the Rialto's executive director. "I don't think anyone knows the impact of discretionary spending."

Biggers sees the Rialto as the economic driver for the Congress Street entertainment district. The Rialto anchors the east end of Congress while the Fox Tucson Theatre holds court on the west end, bookending a strip of restaurants and clubs that includes the popular Hotel Congress.

"We're bringing 75,000-80,000 people per year. They're coming down and eating dinner beforehand and going out after and spending money in other ways," Biggers explained. "On a cultural level, the kinds of programs that we're bringing in, the caliber of artists, is adding to the culture. And that's important to me. I think the theater is one of 100 essential components of revitalizing Downtown."

The city doesn't track those kinds of numbers, but Biggers is not far off the mark, said Jaret Barr, assistant to the city manager. Barr represents the city on the Rialto board.

"If you look at their ticket sales and think of the amount of people that they bring to that corner of the block a year, it's an impressive number of people," Barr allowed. "And those people going to the shows there are going to go the Barrio Grill, the Cup Cafe, park at the Pennington Garage. I think it is an economic engine."

The Fox has not quite found its foothold on Congress since reopening at the end of 2005. The former movie theater, which first opened in 1930, underwent a $13 million renovation that restored it to its Art Deco glory.

The Fox, however, has struggled to fill its 1,200 seats. Some notable exceptions include sold-out or nearly sold-out performances by guitar whiz Lindsey Buckingham (January 2007), comedian Jeff Dunham (September 2007), folk artists Iron and Wine (November 2007) and back-to-back hits with Arlo Guthrie and Jackson Browne (both in April).

The venue seems to have found its niche mainly with baby boomer acts, but it grapples with consistency. Concert bookings in the past have come in waves — a crush followed by an extended dry spell.

"Our promoters like the building, artists love the building, and Tucsonans love the building. I think my predecessors have had difficulty bringing shows to the table," said Richard Singer, executive director of the Tucson Convention Center, who was loaned to the Fox by the city last month to act as its interim executive director.

Singer, who was the city's liaison to the Fox Foundation board, is the third person to sit in that hot seat this year. Longtime leader Herb Stratford resigned in March and his successor, Jim Williams, left in late September.

Singer is banking on shared efforts as one way to survive the downturn and has reached out to other concert promoters, chiefly the Rialto and Danny Zelisko with Live Nation. The Rialto has booked several of its shows into the Fox.

"I think Congress Street needs to be unified," he said. "Artists go up and go down. Any band that starts at the Rialto and grows should be able to move to the Fox, should be able to move to the Music Hall and then to the Tucson Arena. We need to get together to be successful."

In addition to booking occasional shows into the Fox, the Rialto has worked with The Rock, a nightclub on North Park Avenue.

McCrary thinks artists and talent buyers also need to adjust their pricing. But he anticipates they won't do it without a fight.

"I think everybody knows that we're in a downturn and some changes have to be made," he said. "But it's going to be more of a fight than we've seen so far. What's going to have to happen is all these promotion agencies — it's going to take all these entities to push back on artist guarantees and artist fees."

McCrary began feeling the effects of the souring economy last winter.

"I was definitely nervous in February, which is normally a very strong month for us," he said. "It turned out OK, for the most part. Even though shows were down in the numbers that they did, the deals were structured in a way that it didn't hurt us too much."

The year got progressively more precarious. Shows that he expected would be sellouts disappointed, like Ani DiFranco's June concert that attracted fewer than 1,000 to the 1,400-capacity theater.

"When we confirmed the show, we were presuming a sellout," McCrary said. "Every single show that we've done before is down from when we did it before. There are very few surprises on the other end."

But the surprises have been pleasant, including a sleeper sellout from Girl Talk in mid-October. McCrary said he had to turn away at least 100 people at the door.

"You develop a sense of how things are going to do, but it's never very accurate. It's all guesswork," McCrary said. "You can do well guessing right; you can get really hurt guessing wrong."

Poor ticket sales hampered Hinder, McCrary said, and the rock band bowed out of its Oct. 29 show. Two other Rialto concerts fell through last month, including a show by Chris Cornell at the Fox. The former frontman of Soundgarden begged out due to illness.

"If it continues with the climate we're seeing now, it's going to be problematic for us," McCrary conceded.

To change the tide, he said, artists and big promoters, like Live Nation, will have to make concessions.

"The promoters are starting to feel the losses to a really noticeable degree. The artists will have to decide, do we take less money or do we just not go on the road," McCrary said.

"We know from experience if we give Tucsonans a compelling reason to come Downtown, they will come Downtown. So that's a big part of the mission of the Fox, to have more shows on the calendar and drive folks Downtown," said the Fox's Singer, who is banking on rocker Bryan Adams selling out his Dec. 6 Fox concert to give the venue momentum going into the new year.