On Oct 18, 2006, at 3:01 PM, justifiedright wrote:
<x-tad-bigger> That would take major marketing. Last year I challenged every </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> person on this board to join the Marketing Committee. As usual, I </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> was told to go hang.
</x-tad-bigger>
Tom,
Asbury Park has something with its connection to music that could be the foundation for a tourism or marketing plan. I would gladly work or join a marketing committee if they ever even HINTED that they wanted to use music tourism as the foundation of a tourism plan. They don't seem to. How do I know? Because I tried every day for about two years in and out of City Hall.
There are certainly several people who understand the potential which is there, but overall the feeling seems to be like your answer -- it'd be great but it could never happen.
Well, I believe it could EASILY happen but it goes against what the residential idea people want and it goes against what people in town like Tri-City wants. There are a lot of people who want to cut the chord from the past as fast as they can.
Look back at your local history as it deals with music Tom. The Asbury Park Rock 'N Roll Museum in the late 80s had thousands of visitors in a few years without ANY marketing budget and before the Internet was in place. That museum was written about in NY newspapers as well as Rolling Stone and even had a segment on MTV. The visitors came from around the entire world (tons of fans from Japan visited) based on word of mouth.
The WNEW radio shows of the late 80s and early 90s drew upwards of 100,000 people to the beach and boardwalk twice a year for a free live concert. The music was free but Asbury Park vendors and restaurants made out very well on those days. In fact, I remember a few places that would ONLY open for the WNEW shows and were closed all year long afterwards.
How about when Springsteen released The Rising cd? The Today Show thought it was a good enough reason to camp down in Asbury Park and provided a week's worth of free advertising on a national scale. Not to mention the restaurants were packed as were the hotels in the area.
For that matter, how about looking at every time Springsteen came to town for his rehearsal shows or Xmas shows? The restaurants and stores (especially when they ran the Springsteen ticket contests) did about 400 times their regular business proving yet again that music could drive even the downtown shopping area.
And when we announced the New Jersey Music Hall of Fame at the Stone Pony, we had press coverage from around the world. Ironically, the ONLY place that thought it was a bad idea was Asbury Park's own Tri-City News which had to come up with flat out lies to support their claims. Everyone else thought this was something that would be a boon to the City - including the editorial board of the Asbury Park Press.
Nevertheless, it's hard to keep fighting for something that has worked in many other places (Liverpool is by far the best example of a town that was down and out which turned music tourism into the heart of its tourism trade) when even the Mayor who is a musician feels he has better things to do that show up at the announcement of the museum. And it's just as hard when some people in the town supposedly listen to Tri City and believe what they print. I really didn't think anyone did until someone who wrote a letter to TCN agreeing with how stupid the museum idea was contacted me about how he could help after seeing that the plan on the website was completely different from the fabrications printed in that paper.
So that's why I'm not part of a marketing committee. To me, it looks like their idea of marketing is reaching out to people in Tinton Falls to have dinner in Asbury rather than reaching out to people in Boston to spend a week in the summer here.
And the sad truth is that a plan could be done for a whole lot less than you're proposing. Why? Because Asbury Park has a beach, it has a boardwalk, and it's known around the world for its music. Just listen to those words and tell me the town needs to wave the white flag and surrender. When has it EVER tried promoting those things to the world? Never.
****************************************************************************************
Upstage Magazine - New Jersey's Premier Arts & Entertainment Magazine
PO Box 140, Spring Lake, NJ 07762 (732) 280-3305
http://www.UpstageMagazine.com
