Snow. We know you’ve had enough. And we know you’re ready to move on. And moving on is pretty easy when the mercury (or whatever they put in thermometers these days) ventures above freezing and we get an extra hour of daylight as an added bonus.
With winter finally, mercifully, on its way out, we thought it was a good time to do a bit of a post-mortem. We got to thinking about all of the great local shows and national tours that were set to hit Boston this winter, and then we thought about how many of them we didn’t get to see because the fluffy white stuff wouldn’t stop falling.
The Boston music scene, however, does represent an interesting cross section of many of the city’s largest industries. Big shows pull in visitors (and money) from neighboring towns and even others states, helping support local establishments from restaurants, to parking garages, to gas stations and more. Many Boston venues have their own fully operational restaurants and bars, and have a wide array of salaried and hourly workers on their payrolls, from box office staff, to security, to servers, to sound technicians and stagehands.
“The weather has had a negative effect on everyone—the fans, the bands, the venue staff—pretty much everyone loses in these scenarios,” said Jared Dobson, booking and marketing coordinator at Bowery Boston.
Promoters are generally required to refund all ticket sales, meaning the artists don’t get paid—even if they traveled to get to the show. Venue employees, especially those working service sector jobs like servers and coat check attendants, miss out on the money they would normally use to pay for things like rent and groceries.
Crossroads Presents, promoter for large Live Nation venues like the House of Blues, canceled or postponed five shows in the region, including Ben Howard (canceled) and Phox (rescheduled for 6/19). Earlier in the winter, Interpol couldn’t get to their show due to a major snowstorm in Buffalo (That show will be made up in late July).
The Middle East in Cambridge is typically one of the city’s busiest venues with three performance spaces, three restaurants, and live music seven nights a week. The area around the venue is also packed with other restaurants, cafes, and shops. According to Clay Fernald, the venue’s publicity director, this winter was the worst he’d seen in his ten years at the venue, with eight shows canceled by late February.
Seven shows in the span of three weeks at Great Scott were lost or postponed to the snow, according to Dobson. Only one has a make-up date.
When asked if he expected a busier than normal spring schedule because of cancellations, Fernald said, “That doesn’t really work as well as you might think. While January and February are slow touring months anyway, trying to reschedule a tour into our busiest part of the year is hard. The band is either far away, or when the band is around, we already have shows booked for March, April, and May that we booked months ago.” Of course, the end of the winter does have those at the venue feeling more upbeat, as Fernald said he was “super stoked about our spring and summer calendar” and expects to see fans returning in droves.
And while it’s easy to understand the economic impact a terrible winter can have on business, this winter also put a clamp on creativity for some organizations. Sam Potrykus helps run a mini music empire as co-founder of The Boston Hassle, and he is also executive editor of The Boston Compass newspaper. The Hassle organizes shows of all different shapes and sizes around Boston, and The Compass is one of Boston’s go-to sources for expert music news.
According to Portrykus, The Hassle didn’t have to cancel any shows that featured visiting bands, but some local shows were cancelled. Portrykus noted, “Sure it’s a bummer to cancel a gig, and we always hold out until the last possible minute, but our thing is cyclical, so you know if we miss them this time, we’ll be sure to hook it up next time”.
Portrykus said that the snow actually had a bigger impact from an organizational perspective. Both The Hassle and The Compass exist under a nonprofit organization known at BRAIN Arts, and the organization meets every Monday at the Democracy Center in Harvard Square to work on show booking and plan content for the website and newspaper. “Having our weekly meeting canceled week after week for a solid month was a bit frustrating” said Portrykus. Having had a few of our own weekly meetings canceled here at Allston Pudding, we can certainly relate. Email and Facebook are great, but nothing beats an in-person brainstorm session.
Like Fernald, Potrykus ended our conversation by putting a more positive spin on winter mayhem with what can best be described as a rallying cry.
Sam told us he was down for “the brutality of winter in New England”, saying “it’s part of what gives East Coast people their edge and deeper appreciation for warmer weather and outdoor activities. All the gigs that weren’t canceled this winter were a challenge to set up, play and attend. But we did it. It ain’t pretty, it’s perseverance. There’s a reason they called it ‘This Is Boston, Not L.A.‘”