Roanoke Civic Center schedules on-sale party on its plaza for Rob Zombie/Alice Cooper tickets sales
Here’s something new and pretty novel from the Roanoke Civic Center. The venue is kicking off ticket sales for the Oct. 19 Rob Zombie/Alice Cooper concert with a 9 p.m. Friday night shindig on the civic center plaza. That’s Friday the 13th, in keeping with the hellish, Halloween-ish theme of the Zombie/Cooper tour.
Roanoke rockers Madrone will perform at 9:30 p.m. on the plaza for what the civic center is calling the Midnight Monster Mash. Food and drinks will be available, and show sponsor WROV-FM will be on-site, playing music and doing giveaways, civic center general manager Chris Connolly said.
The civic center will put wristbands on folks, giving them a place in the ticket line when sales begin at midnight, Connolly said. The event is free, for all ages, with a cash bar and chances to win backstage passes.
“I think it’s going to be pretty cool,” he said in a voice mail message he left here earlier today.
And it’s definitely unique, for Roanoke at least.
August 11, 2010 - 6:04 PM
Interesting…
Ah – Roaonoke Civic Center’s annual token big rock concert.
Oh, wait, they did book Dokken & Great White earlier this year, both bands being a mere 25 years past their prime.
Next time this year I’m sure we’ll have another Kid Rock or 3 Doors Down concert to look forward to as well. *snore….zzzzzzzz*
That said, not knocking this show, nor the promo for it, and hope both do well.
It would just be nice to see the civic center utilized more than once or twice a year for bigger rock concerts.
FINALLY! Roanoke Civic Center is getting great concerts and events for everyone. When I complained years ago to the civic center to please give us locals something more than gun shows, cat shows, ect. I got an email back saying that it could not be done because RCC was too small and the bigger artist would not come to perform here. Well, whoever is doing the promoting now has PROVEN them wrong. I have not seen the civic center this alive in 15 years. Whoever is responsibile for making Roanoke come alive again with decent music of all kinds…I thank you and I speak for many many others who thank you as well. Great job.
….can we purchase tickets on-line like normal people?
Yes, Dana B — hometownbanktix.com
I hear you, Dylan. What bands do you think could draw well at the civic center?
I will now avoid your question, Tad, as it is much easier for me to sit back and point my finger at all that I think is not being done well than to offer constructive suggestions.
kidding….
Roanoke can be a fickle market for large shows considering the financial gamble that can be taken for booking bands that may draw large, capacity filling crowds in other cities like Richmond or Raleigh but may not here in Roanoke.
So in that aspect, as well as we are not as big a market as other larger cities, I can understand the difficulty in booking big bands at the civic center.
Anyway…..bands I think that could draw well at the civic center that are plausible and currently touring are acts like Black Crows,Stone Temple Pilots, Allman Brothers,Pearl Jam, Tom Petty, Kings of Leon, Green Day, Pixies, Drive By Truckers, The Black Keys – to name a few. Not all acts I personally want to see, but ones that are guaranteed draws most places.
Granted some of those acts would be harder to book than others and some of them would fare better at the Performing Arts Center than the Civic Center itself.
Not to mention there are dozens of festivals with multiple acts, lare and small, that could be booked here.
Many more I could mention, but they would just be self indulgent picks for my own favorite bands and not ones I am sure could fill the hall in this city.
Ultimately I am just griping cause I wish Roanoke could/would compete with other markets like Richmond or Asheville,NC. We are doing better and better over time now it seems, so take my gripe with a grain of salt.
That’s a good list, Dylan. I’d like to see a bunch of those bands here. Let’s hope for the best. on that one.
You’re right, things are getting better, but we’ll see if that’s an upward trend. Hope so.
Although Roanoke ticket buyers can be fickle, only sometimes is the main booking obstacle the risk that a band will not sell out the hall; the more frequent challenge facing bookers of the Roanoke Civic Center vis-a-vis other regional arenas and summer sheds, is that when shows DO sell out, they don’t offer the same degree of return on investment. For instance, compare the RCC to the Greensboro Coliseum, an arena of the same vintage, but with greater capacity for arena rock shows. For the same fixed investment risk, a promoter who sells out both venues at the same prices, will make significantly more in Greensboro. Put yourself in the promoter’s shoes: how often would you buy one dollar tickets for the Mega-Thousand lottery, while getting no better odds than the Mega-Million?
True, Greensboro is an MSA with hundreds of thousands more population, and somewhat differing demographics from Roanoke, but that only emphasizes the need to be realistic about what our own marketplace strengths and weaknesses are. Asheville has some key differences that limit its’ usefulness for comparison to Roanoke, as do Richmond, Charlottesville, No.Va., Raleigh, and Knoxville. And some acts at the height of their drawing power stipulate venue size minimums that remove the choice from bookers’ hands. Others may have staging requirements that preclude certain venues.
Still, when responsive to market conditions, there can be more opportunities than some folks think. We had Bob Dylan a few years ago, for instance, and the Grateful Dead’s ’87 stand in Roanoke was partly a result of the Dead nation’s earlier hassles at the Richmond Coliseum. Also, an advantage to our size is that one can often see bands up close that will grow to become too big for our arena later, e.g. Phish at a Salem bar, and Dave Mathews in Blacksburg in the same era. (I saw Alice Cooper at Salem back when the band was just breaking out, with a photo in Rolling Stone of their limo at the Salem Holiday Inn. The opening act, Capt. Beefheart, mingled among the fans after his set. It couldn’t happen one year later, they were too huge). And the scope of our LOCAL talent scene is such that one is virtually guaranteed to encounter other future notables the same way. We’ll just have to use our own minds to know which they might be, instead of relying on the tour schedules in Spin.
When it comes to rock ‘n’ roll venues, size does matter, eh Pete?
By the way, who in the devil relies on tour schedules in Spin magazine?!
No doubt.Heck with Pollstar.com and the like, I get all my touring information straight from CREEM Magazine!
But yeah, Roanoke’s in the middle of some large markets which can and does cause us to get skipped over by some popular acts.
Pete’s mentioning of meeting rock acts up close and personal made me think of how back in the 80s and early 90s a lot of the rock acts that played the civic center would swing through Valley View Mall and walk around a bit. I worked there for a few years and recall seeing a few hair metal acts walking around with throngs of teenage girls following them.
My boss at one store sold Steve Vai a travel coffee mug, too. Woo-hoo. haha!
They also used to frequent Countryside golf course, where my mom worked at the time. Simply by striking up a conversation with them she was able to score me tickets to many acts that came through here back then.
Boy Howdy!
Good stories about meeting the famous. I once met the late Robben Crosby, from Ratt, as he walked through a Holiday Inn lobby in Johnson City, Tenn. I can’t tell any more of that story here.