Was Twin Cities Summer Jam a cash cow? #TCSummerJam

I don't know three things about running a music festival, but I know that Twin Cities Summer Jam was a major production, and not cheap.

I've pointed it out before, Aerosmith makes huge money performing live after all these decades, and they didn't come to Minnesota as an act of charity. Pretty boy Chris Hawkey said as much when he noted that "the damn festival," which he is an owner of, had to sell VIP tickets/access just to afford Aerosmith. Clearly they didn't sell enough of those VIP tickets... that's well documented.

So if VIP ticket sales were vital to the damn festival, we have to assume that Steve Tyler and the added cost of Buckcherry on Friday night didn't leave a lot of profit for Hawkey and the other owners. Sure, Canterbury Downs/Park made money off its beer sales, but it couldn't have been a profitable night for the festival's ownership, unless they sold a lot of those shitty T-shirts and other trinkets. The price of those T-shirts, hats and other bullshit, by the way, was reduced before the end of the festival on Saturday. People are idiots, but even the idiots weren't buying that crap, it seems.

It's a general rule of business, you don't expect to make big money in your first year. You may do huge business, but you have a lot of startup costs. Aerosmith sells itself, but I have to believe that all the costs associated with running the Summer Jam didn't leave a lot of room for profit, and we know that the ticket sales didn't surpass expectations.... otherwise the damn festival's brain trust wouldn't have slashed tickets in the final days, when hype should have been through the roof.

The question is, did the brain trust make a dime off of its efforts. Did it come up short? You can't tell me that Pitbull/Armando and Tim McGraw came cheap on Saturday night.

Was the brain trust prepared to weather a financial loss in its first year in order to build something that the masses would flock to, and drop hundreds of dollars on VIP tickets, annually? Time will tell.

Strib music critic Jon Bream doesn't run music festivals, either. But after decades of covering the industry and reviewing concerts, you've gotta think he knows a thing or 10 about the economics of the concerts and tours that take place in the Twin Cities.

His festival review/wrap up included a telling paragraph. The damn festival "merited solid grades in just about every aspect except ticket pricing (too high) and efficiency (computer and box office glitches). Here’s hoping the fest promoters can come up with the capital to bring TC Summer Jam back in 2020."

Gee, why did Bream throw that last comment in his review? Do you think he's just speculating? Do you think he's clueless about what the damn festival cost, and what the crowd size meant in terms of covering the costs of the performers, security, marketing and general labor associated with running a multi-day festival?

I don't know if there's a future for Summer Jam, and clearly neither does Bream. But I have no reason to believe he's shitting on the future of the damn festival simply to be an asshole.

Can Hawkey and company afford another ego stroke next summer? If they decide yes, it will be interesting to see what the damn festival looks like in 2020.

If the brain trust tries this stunt again, here's a nickel's worth of free advice: Don't buy the VIP tickets, no matter how hard P.T. Barnum tries to sell them to you.