RIP: The Hard Rock taxpayer funded concert series is dead

Let no man say someone did not get something special out of some $657,000 in taxpayer funded concerts. During one Hard Rock concert, Sugar Ray's lead singer Mark McGrath (above left) announced to the tiny crowd, "Hey, it's great to be in Niagara Falls. Where else can you go where the mayor of the city comes backstage and does shots with you?" Concert goers and taxpayers alike got more for their money, since they got to see both the musical act and were treated to Mayor Dyster appearing on stage and giving speeches and, sometimes, if the audience was very lucky, introducing the acts.

Some good news at last.

Sources at City Hall told the Niagara Falls Reporter the city will not fund the Hard Rock Café Inc.’s New Year’s Eve concert and guitar drop.

The city will save $50,000 – enough to save a job at city hall.

“The concert series served its purpose in promoting Niagara Falls,” Council Chairman Sam Fruscione said but “the City must move forward. This New Year Eve's ball drop, if it happens, will be paid by Hard Rock.”

Word from City Hall is that Hard Rock has no intention, however, of returning the $42,000 it received from Niagara Falls taxpayers to bring KC and the Sunshine Band for an outdoor concert that was rained out in August.

The Reporter was told Hard Rock management snowed weak-kneed city officials into postponing the concert until next year, the following year or maybe the 12th of never.

It’s been speculated that Hard Rock management failed to secure rain insurance for the KC concert and when high winds, rain and lightning prevented KC from performing, Hard Rock had to eat the cost.

Hard Rock manager Dominic Verni said, “I’m not answering any questions” and referred the Reporter to the company’s PR firm, Coyne Public Relations. Coyne did not return calls.

Since 2008, the gaming-rich Seminole Indians of Florida, owners of Hard Rock, received $657,000 from the city to put on “free” outdoor concerts, along with having exclusive food and beverage rights during the events.

On top of that – the Reporter broke this story earlier this year- Hard Rock pays acts less than what they get from taxpayers. For example, the city gave Hard Rock $42,000 to book KC. KC was paid $30,000. Hard Rock got $30,000 to stage Sugar Ray. Booking agents Grabow of Beverley Hills, said Sugar Ray books for $15,000.

The remarkable thing about the Hard Rock Café concert series is that, while Hard Rock gets public money, they are not required to disclose how it spends the public’s money.

A FOIL request made by the Reporter for reports made by Hard Rock to the city was returned with these words written on the FOIL: “As per Hard Rock, the information is proprietary and will not be disclosed.”

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster, arguing the concerts bring revenue to the ramp downtown, said, “Parking revenues go into the general fund, so they help to reduce the burden on our taxpayers. So, to us, that’s economic development.”

Did the city make parking revenue off these concerts?

The Reporter witnessed the mayor and Hard Rock representatives estimate higher attendance figures than our correspondents who attended the events. For example, the mayor said the Sugar Ray concert in July 2009 attracted 5,000. By our estimate, a maximum of 900 people stood anywhere near the stage at any one time.

Is the mayor wrong about parking?

The concerts are held on Saturday nights in July and August, 300 feet from the Niagara Falls State Park. It is hard to determine how many came to see the concerts and how many were simply headed to the park.

Usually, all 3,200 hotel rooms in the city are full every Saturday in July and August regardless of concerts. Did they fill these rooms because they came to see Lou Gramm or Sloan, or because they came to see the waterfalls during the height of the tourist season?

During the course of the Sugar Ray concert, thousands walked to the state park, past the stage where Sugar Ray performed. Some stopped and listened for a minute, it is true, before moving on to their destination: Niagara Falls.

By counting every person who glanced at the concert stage, whether they stayed for one song or one second, it may have added up to 5,000. But to say 5,000 attended the Sugar Ray concert would be like saying that, had a street musician been performing with his tip jar, 5,000 attended his concert.

The same is true with the parking lots on Saturdays in summer. They are full whether there is a concert or not.

But if Hard Rock concerts brought people downtown, and generated parking revenue, we would see a boost in parking for New Year's Eve concerts.

Normally there are few businesses open downtown in winter.

The Reporter made FOIL requests for parking revenue for December 31, 2009 – 2011 for city parking lots to determine how much the city made in parking from the concerts.

In 2009, the city paid Hard Rock $23,000 for the Rik Emmet concert. City parking revenue for December 31, 2009 was $630.

For December 31, 2010 Hard Rock got $50,000. The Mayor and Hard Rock’s Verni said the Smash Mouth concert drew 12,000 people.

They must have all walked to the concert for the city took in only $1,105 in parking revenue. At $5 per car, they only parked 221 cars.

The city gave Hard Rock another $50,000 for the December 31, 2011 concert featuring the Wailers. The city collected $1,364 in parking.

The city collected $3,097 in parking for three New Year’s events.

The city paid $123,000 for them.

All told the city lost $119,903.

The mayor’s model for economic development doesn’t work.

The city never provided any measurement of how many people stayed at hotels because of these concerts either, although it’s claimed this is the reason bed tax was used to fund them.

If the average hotel on New Year’s Eve was $100, with 4 percent bed tax and 4 percent (the city’s share of) sales tax, the city gets $8 for every room.

At $8 per room, in order to get back one concert at $50,000, the concert would have to produce 6,250 rooms rented that night.

The problem is the entire city has only 3,241 rooms.

The average person probably wouldn't invest $42,000 for a concert featuring KC, Smash Mouth, Soul Asylum, Talas or Donna the Buffalo. The reason is they would lose money.

The average person probably wouldn't ask his neighbors to do so with public money.

For some time, the Reporter has been the sole media voice calling for an end to the wasteful concert series.

We gave plenty of reasons.

We wrote dozens of times “If Hard Rock wants to put on a concert series, they should use their own money.”

Finally it is coming to pass, but not because leaders of this city understand these concerts are losers, or that it is not government’s responsibility to entertain the governed. It ended because the city, quite frankly, simply ran out of money.