Was Guitarist Just Sick Of Local Crowds?
Did Ozzy Osbourne cancel his OzzFest concert on Tuesday because one of his band members was sick, as officially announced? Or because of that all-too-familiar reason, poor ticket sales?
Spotlight makes it a personal crusade to get to the bottom of concert cancellations, but in this case the answer must remain somewhat ambiguous.
On one hand, I found that the OzzFest dates before and after the Spokane date were not cancelled. If a band member (allegedly the lead guitarist) was sick, he wasn’t sick enough to cancel the Portland date, two days before Spokane’s, or the Phoenix date, three days after.
Hmm, that sounds suspicious.
On the other hand, at least 4,500 tickets were already sold for this show. Although that is less than half the house, concerts with far fewer have taken place as scheduled. Also, it means that 4,500 tickets must now be refunded, a dollar amount that runs well over $100,000. Arena officials are convinced that the cancellation was indeed due to illness and not due to ticket sales.
Only Ozzy, his bandmates and their doctor know for sure.
You’ll get convenience fee, too
By the way, the refund does include the per-ticket convenience fee, contrary to the announcement printed Tuesday. G&B Select-a-Seat has made it a policy for three years now to return the convenience fee with refunded tickets.
Buy your tickets on the Web
One more ticket-related note: You can now order tickets for G&B Select-a-Seat events on the World Wide Web, at www.nwenet.com.
KKZX-FM is No. 1
The Arbitron ratings, that quarterly celebration of radio mood swings, is out for the summer quarter.
The winner is: KKZX-FM, the classic rock station.
Those “mood swings” apply not only to radio listeners, who keep picking a different No. 1 station every quarter. They also apply to the people who run these stations, who can be riding high one month only to go into free-fall the next.
Take, for instance, the people at KZZU-FM. Last quarter, they were on top of the world at No. 1. This quarter, they dropped four spots to No. 5.
Radio people are used to it by now - this marks the ninth straight quarter that the No. 1 spot has changed hands. Four different stations have shared the No. 1 spot back and forth during that period.
Here are the Arbitron rankings, quarter-hour share for all listeners 12 and over, for the period of June 27 to Sept. 18, copyright 1996, The Arbitron Co., all rights reserved (format and position on the dial in parentheses):
1. KKZX (classic rock, 98.9 FM): 9.1.
2. KDRK (country, 93.7 FM): 8.4.
3. KEYF (oldies, 1050 AM and 101.1 FM): 7.1.
4. KXLY (adult contemporary, 99.9 FM): 6.5.
5. KZZU (hits, 93 FM): 6.3.
6. KNFR (country, 96.1 FM): 6.2.
7. KAEP (adult alternative, 105.7 FM): 5.8.
8. KISC (adult contemporary, 98 FM): 5.7.
9. (tie) KGA (news-talk, 1510 AM): 5.5.
9. (tie) KXLY (news-talk, 920 AM): 5.5.
11. KCDA (country, 103.1 FM): 5.2.
12. KAQQ (nostalgia, 590 AM): 4.5.
13. (tie) KHTQ (hits, 94.5 FM): 3.4.
13. (tie) KNJY (rock, 103.9 FM): 3.4.
15. KEZE (rock, 96.9 FM): 1.8.
16. (tie) KJRB (talk, 790 AM): 1.3.
16. (tie) KTSL (Christian, 101.9 FM): 1.3.
18. KTRW (sports, 970 AM): 1.0.
All roads lead to Rome and Greece
Attendance is running at above 3,000 per week for “Treasures of Antiquity: Greek and Roman Art from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” at the Cheney Cowles Museum.
The total, at not quite the one-third point of the run, was 12,374 as of Thursday. That’s not as high as officials had hoped. They hoped for 100,000 for the run of the exhibit, which continues through Dec. 31.
Still, this should easily surpass the all-time attendance champ, the Dutch Masters exhibit, which pulled in about 30,000 people. The heavy holiday period is yet to come.
Meanwhile, the museum has already booked all of its school-tour time, so it is now opening up Mondays for school tours. Mondays are normally the only days the museum is closed.
Also, a second Greek Constellation Planetarium Show at Eastern Washington University has been scheduled for Nov. 22. The first one, Nov. 8, sold out quickly.
For information on these events, call the Antiquities Hotline at 456-6181.
John Allison, attorney at law
John Allison, reporter and weekend anchor at KXLY-4, passed the Washington State Bar Exam this month, which means he now has two professions: journalist and lawyer.
He’ll be practicing both of them, at least for a while. Allison, 36, said he will continue to do his weekend anchoring duties, but will be gradually phasing out his weekday reporting duties. By the end of the year, he’ll probably be spending most of the week establishing a law career.
“I’ll be living a split existence for a while,” said Allison.
He said he can’t predict the exact trajectory of his career - it may be all law or it might be a form of journalism that utilizes his law training.
Allison’s bar exam success came after some tough years of going to Gonzaga Law School by day and working as a reporter at night. He called it a “real re-invigorating experience.”
The Travelling Lundbergs
Spokane’s own folk dance-band, the Travelling Lundbergs, are out there traveling this week and next week.
The band, which consists of Street Music owner Jack Lindberg, Arvid Lundin and Dave Smith, is touring the Northeast, with gigs in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Vermont and New Hampshire.
They also have their own CD out, called “The Lundberg Brothers, Joined at the Ear - Neo-Traditional Dance Music.”
, DataTimes MEMO: Spotlight is a weekly column of news and commentary on arts and media. To leave a message on Jim Kershner’s voice-mail, call 459-5493. Or send e-mail to jimk@spokesman.com, or regular mail to Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210.