Winners and losers at Twin Cities Summer Jam #TCSummerJam

Like any event old or new, there's room for review and scrutiny. Were there winners or losers during the first Twin Cities Summer Jam? Let's find out.

I knew of the event, and didn't think much of it. It wasn't clear to me how or why it was happening, and I had no interest in attending. I have no doubt the performers put on a good show. Jon Bream, the weathered music critic from the Star Tribune, gave a thumbs up to most performances. Some of those were more enthusiastic than others. The only one he didn't appreciate was Buckcherry. No big deal, there's always a dud in every festival lineup.

Bream made mention of issues in his festival review, but let Summer Jam off easy. He noted the tickets were priced too high, and that the festival's technology was inefficient. A previous article he wrote about the festival noted there were a few other flaws, such as the configuration of the sections and video screens, but he really didn't flesh out details of any of the Jam's issues.

In the last day or two I reviewed a Summer Jam article that seemed slightly more critical of the event and its flaws. I'm not sure when Bream wrote it, but it continued to downplay the flaws.

Bream's reporting didn't seem to provide fodder for the prosecution or the defense.

As I said, I wasn't particularly interested in the festival. Aerosmith would have been interesting to see, but I had no interest in seeing any other act performing during the weekend, unless you paid me to be there and treated me like Belinda Jensen. (She raved about the Jam via Facebook, and I'm going to guess she neither paid for a ticket nor had to watch the show while rubbing shoulders with the unwashed masses. If so, her raves are hollow.)

I find it odd to invite Pitbull to open for Tim McGraw on the final night of your festival, but if it works, go for it. Opening acts usually draw tepid interest from the audience, but I suppose it's different at a festival where people want, and expect, to stand around for hours. So I'm sure Pitbull had a nice crowd. And if you're the kind of guy or gal that likes boot scootin', why wouldn't you want to watch Armando rap his way through a bunch of dance tunes, or watch his dancing babes shake their money makers? No, I don't get it either. That was probably the first and last time Pitbull opens for McGraw.

The mash up of artists seemed to work, as best I can tell. Score one for Summer Jam.

So who comes out of Summer Jam a winner? Lots of people who paid for crappy general admission access, and then found out they could flood the VIP section, for reasons we'll probably never definitively know.

If you paid for general admission tickets, you got pretty crappy views of the action due to the distance and limited view of the stage, as well as the lackluster video screen technology, by many accounts. Double win for those who waited until the final days to buy their admission ticket, and paid less than those who bought early. Pre-sales are typically crucial to events, but those who were on the fence were rewarded for being lukewarm to the festival. That's one hell of a slap in the face for committing  your dollars weeks or months in advance, eh? But I said it before and I'll say it again, it works both ways, and you make a value judgment when you buy your ticket when you do.

Clearly the biggest losers were those who paid hundreds of dollars per head for VIP access, and then were treated like sardines when the cheapskates were rewarded with a comparable experience at a fraction of the price. That's disgusting. I'm not convinced we know who is to blame, but more on that in a moment.

Neither winners nor losers: All the sponsors. There seemed to be plenty of sponsors, from the big casino just down the road to the Clear Channel radio stations, some of which were pimping and promoting the festival via free tickets and upgrades.

Nobody seems to be angry at the sponsors, and understandably so. They may have supported a poorly executed festival, but I suppose they're victims, too. They paid something to get their name in front of the masses. So even if it was a debacle, the show did go on. Even if it was a total disaster, they would be considered victims, too.

And nobody seems to be pointing a finger at Canterbury for hosting the Jam. I have to believe that beyond getting paid for use of their space and infrastructure, they were going to get a cut of concession sales to the captive audience. This wasn't free money, but they had a vested interest in the success of the festival, regardless of how little, if any, participation they had in its execution.

Sometimes you're an innocent bystander. But you should receive some of the blame when you allow a group to come in and miss the mark so spectacularly on their ticket allocation for premium access, especially when  your property has hosted similar events over the years. You don't rent your hotel convention space to hate groups, unless you want public backlash. You shouldn't turn over your seasonal pony track to a group that doesn't have the deep pockets to do it right, especially an untested entity like the Summer Jam brain trust.

Yet nobody seems to be upset with Canterbury. So they're not losers in this deal, but they should be.

Probable losers: Those in the horse industry. The Jam didn't happen overnight. Those who come to Canterbury for live racing each season -- jockeys, owners, shit shovelers -- know up front what they're getting and for how long. I have no idea how an off weekend effects their income or schedule at tracks elsewhere around the country. Perhaps there's always an off weekend during the summer. I really have no clue. But I'm guessing a lot of those season people who are vital to Canterbury's success found themselves with an unwelcome unpaid vacation. Or perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps it was "spring break" week for the horsemen of Canterbury. Seems like shutting down their livelihood during a summer weekend is not doing them any favors.

It's not always clear who owns an event or attraction. Sometimes it's a faceless corporation. Sometimes it's a small, anonymous group. It was only as Summer Jam went off the rails that I got an inkling as to who has some stake in it.

It turns out potential loser Chris Hawkey, the morning radio/evening patriot who loves his country, owns "the damn festival," according to a comment he tweeted to one of his critics. Hawkey took the time to engage the critic, first off, and that's a boneheaded move. Don't be Brian Oake, Chris. That's not a good look for anybody.

I'm not a fan of Hawkey, but it does me no good to root against him. The dude hustles, and people like the music he churns out. I don't find him funny, which is one of many reasons I don't listen to his KFAN morning show, but they don't need me. I've only heard select samples of his music, and it fails to dazzle me. But it doesn't have to. I can easily turn it off, and life goes on.

Hawkey has a long history of busting his ass, and has a couple of pretty good gigs, it seems. I'm not sure how much investment he could possibly have in a major event that had a ton of expenses, but he owns the damn festival, he made that clear. And by owning it, he gets to stroke his ego by booking his love of God/country music jamboree into slots on both Friday and Saturday night. It's good to be Chris Hawkey.

Hawkey has been the mouthpiece for the festival, given his prominence in the music industry and local entertainment market. Depending upon what you read, he has suggested refunds are coming to the VIP ticket buyers who were shat upon at the festival. I've seen it suggested a couple of different ways, including in an article from the bastion of journalism excellence, Bring Me The News. So it must be true.

Will Hawkey end up being a loser in this deal? If those who were royally screwed by the festival don't get a refund, everyone associated with the debacle should be force fed a shit sandwich, with a steaming pile of shit. Piled high. And Hawkey should be served the first and last sandwich, since he owns "the damn festival."

But given the VIPs are a small percentage of the ticket buyers, it's unlikely his blue collar persona is going to take much of a hit, big picture. He can still sing about how America is great again, and the $99 Summer Jam ticket buyers will eat it up. I'm fighting the temptation to make a shit sandwich joke right now.

I doubt he'll end up a loser in this deal, but the biggest asshole, by far, is Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, if you believe Hawkey. Tyler "demanded" that the general admission crowd fill in the vast open space in the VIP area near the stage, and threatened to default upon his contract to perform if that didn't happen, Hawkey is quoted as saying.

It seems hard to believe, but that's the story Hawkey is selling.

So Tyler told the festival that if they didn't screw over his fans who paid hundreds of dollars for premium access, he was going to default on a major payday and screw over every fan at the festival by not performing? Really hard to believe, honestly, but that's what we've been told by Hawkey.

So we'll assume that's exactly what went down. If so, then Tyler is definitely an asshole. And if I paid for VIP access to his show, it would be the last time I gave a dime to the asshole.

And yet, if Hawkey's claims are true, nobody is really going to hold it against Tyler or Aerosmith, because most rubes don't care, as long as they're not the ones getting jail raped by Tyler.

So we know who the winners and losers are, or should be, eh?

While Tyler isn't likely to come out of this a loser, according to Hawkey's story, we can only conclude Tyler is an asshole. If so, this shouldn't surprise us.

After nearly five decades of being catered to, he's making as much as ever doing shows whenever he is in the mood. Not everybody gets rich quick as a live performer, but the value placed on the live performance has increased exponentially during the past 25 years or so, and Aerosmith seems to have no problem drawing huge crowds year after year as the value placed upon live shows continues to grow. Aerosmith ain't worried about hit records any more, they keep banking money off of their live performances, and are clearly a viable draw, as they now have a recurring gig in Vegas, where the big names now set up shop in a major casino and let their fans come to them, rather than the other way around. Worked very well for Celine Dion. After nearly 50 years, and millions of dollars having been showered upon Aerosmith, it'd be hard not to have an ego, and become an asshole. Or perhaps he was born that way.

The internet may be littered with stories about what an asshole Tyler is off stage. I don't know, I'm not looking for them, and I don't care. And perhaps I'd be none the wiser if it wasn't for the arrogance and stupidity of the Summer Jam brain trust.

Hawkey was quoted as saying that in order for his damn festival to be able to book an act as big as Aerosmith in its first year, it would take a lot of cash. A lot. I don't know how much, but Aerosmith isn't on tour. Aerosmith has been playing gigs in Vegas, and came to Minnesota specifically for this gig, according to their 2019 performance schedule. Aerosmith didn't roll into Minnesota for a pair of gigs at Canterbury and Moondance Jam. Tyler and company were here solely for Hawkey's damn festival.

In order to gross that huge stack of greenbacks, Hawkey had to sell VIP tickets, and bunches of them, to pay Aerosmith's fee. He is quoted as saying "we paid an exorbitant amount of money for Aerosmith to be at this festival, we had to sell some VIP seating in order to make enough money to have a festival."

Seems a bit ambitious and foolish for a first-time festival, doesn't it? Seems dangerous and foolish to gamble big on your first go at it, doesn't it? You could afford to gamble if you're a concert production company like Live Nation looking to establish a new annual event. Could Summer Jam's brain trust really afford to gamble big on its damn festival?

It did. And because of that, we know that Tyler is an asshole. But that's not why we know.

The only reason we know is that the Summer Jam brain trust clearly doesn't know how to count. And that's hilarious!

I'll make up numbers for the purpose of the illustration. I have no idea what the actual numbers should be. Let's assume Summer Jam wanted to sell 500 VIP tickets for each night of the show, and dedicated space for those VIP ticket holders in front of the stage. You assume they allocated enough space to allow the VIPs to mill about comfortably in front of the stage, without being packed into their section like sardines.

A reasonable plan, and some people were willing to spend hundreds for, presumably, that sort of privilege.

So what do you do when it's Friday morning, and your computer program (You've got to have some sort of accounting software, don't you?) tells you that you've sold 100 VIP tickets? The easy thing to do is hope 400 people pay big bucks at the gate that day and fill in the space that night. But c'mon, we know that's not going to happen.

Yet it seems like that's exactly what Summer Jam hoped for. Then asshole Tyler comes along and threatens to walk away if 95 percent of the crowd is 500 feet away from the stage during his performance. Suddenly Tyler's VIP fans are being shat upon.

So what's the solution? The obvious solution is that you look at your VIP ticket allowance, look at how many you've sold by Friday morning, decide how many you're going to give away to get people excited about your $99 general admission tickets and then adjust the VIP section accordingly. If you have sold 100 VIP tickets, are going to upgrade 100 people somehow that day and think you'll sell 50 VIP tickets that day, you reconfigure your VIP area to allow the general admission slobs to be closer to the stage. And if you're lucky, you'll sell 60 VIP tickets that day, and therefore you'll have slightly less breathing room for everyone, without packing them in like sardines. Then Tyler never has to be the asshole that screws his wealthiest fans.

And don't tell me that the VIP area couldn't have been reduced, while maintaining its integrity, that morning. The concert wasn't being moved to a Somerset, Wisconsin, campground. It doesn't take a Mayo Clinic specialist to reconfigure the VIP seating. It can't be that hard to reduce the VIP area of your damn festival that morning. If just can't.

And, of course, after screwing Aerosmith VIPs on Friday night, that same thing happened on Saturday, I guess. According to Bring Me The News, "with the precedent set on Friday by Aerosmith, the VIP section was opened up to GA for Pitbull and Tim McGraw on Saturday." So those who paid huge money for McGraw on Saturday were shat upon, too?

Precedent? What a bunch of horseshit. Which is appropriate given the venue for Summer Jam.

Tyler was an asshole and VIPs were screwed, all because the Summer Jam brain trust overestimated how many expensive tickets they could sell, and couldn't figure out how to configure their VIP area in front of the stage based upon the number of VIP tickets that they had sold? How embarrassing. Talk about amateur hour.

No, I've never run a damn festival. Of course it's far more complicated than that.

As George Costanza once said, "It's not a lie if you believe it."