BET ON COUNTRY

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, May 12, 2008 by Bill Blankenship

By Bill Blankenship

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

If one of the two casinos closest to Topeka announces a concert, odds are 2-to-1 it will be a country show.

Two-thirds of the acts booked during the last three years for ticketed concerts at the Prairie Band Casino & Resort and the Golden Eagle Casino were country bands or singers.

Diamond Rio just did two shows at the Prairie Band Casino north of Topeka, where all concerts completed or announced so far this year have been country acts.

When Toxic Audio performs Saturday night at the Golden Eagle Casino east of Horton, the award-winning a cappella quintet will be the first noncountry act there since the 5th Dimension did a show last summer.

Why so much country?

"We've found that country sells better than what else we've tried," said Sheryl A. Blue, advertising manager for the Prairie Band Casino. "I guess this is our demographic."

However, it just isn't the casino showrooms where country sells tickets.

Barbara Wiggins, executive director of the Topeka Performing Arts Center, said when she first took over running TPAC in early 2006, she and her staff spent a lot of time surveying patrons and conducting focus groups to see what kind of acts people wanted to see.

However, when some of those acts were booked, those people who said they wanted to attend those kinds of concerts didn't follow through at the box office.

So Wiggins took a different tack.

She looked to what people in the market were listening to on the radio, and that is country music. The latest Arbitron ratings show one in four radio listeners in the Topeka market are tuned to a country station.

Wiggins said country legends have proved to be the best-selling type of musical acts for TPAC, along with classic rock concerts.

Tickets just went on sale at TPAC for a June 22 concert by Ray Stevens, who made a career from penning and recording comic novelty songs, such as "The Streak," "Ahab the Arab" and "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival."

"We've been getting a lot of calls about him from different parts of the country," Wiggins said.

Interest also remains high in the June 5 concert at TPAC by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, with Wiggins saying that show's top-priced $77 tickets are nearly sold out.

Meanwhile, at the city's largest concert venue, Landon Arena at the Kansas Expocentre, general manager H.R. Cook also has his eyes on country acts.

"I've got Carrie Underwood who's coming in Sept. 30 that's confirmed," Cook said.

However, country isn't the only type of musical act Cook is exploring.

"There's a genre out there that wasn't even around when the Expocentre was built, and that's alternative music, like My Chemical Romance," said Cook, referring to a group that drew about 5,600 mostly teens and 20-somethings March 2, 2007, to Landon Arena.

"This fall, we have several holds for alternative music with the same group that brought in My Chemical Romance," Cook said.

For the next few months, however, most acts touring this area will be going to outdoor venues, fairs and festivals and to Kansas City, Mo.'s still-new Sprint Center, which is managed by AEG, one of the leading sports and entertainment presenters in the world.

"We all knew that when the Sprint Center opened up, the center of the universe for the Midwest was going to be at the Sprint Center, that every single act AEG could get its hands on was going in the Sprint Center," Cook said.

Even some groups that would play smaller venues, such as Landon Arena, have been put in the Sprint Center, with drapes used to cut the seating area by a half or more.

"A couple of the shows that I went to see at the Sprint Center were originally booked here, and AEG pulled the plug on them and put them in the Sprint Center because they need that many shows. They've got to feed the monster," Cook said.

That should change, especially if the Sprint Center lands a professional sports franchise that will claim concert dates, leaving acts searching for other area venues.

When that happens, the Expocentre and TPAC can "pick up the pieces," Cook said.

Meanwhile, concert-goers should expect more country legends and classic rock concerts, especially at the casinos.

While Prairie Band Casino hasn't announced these upcoming shows, Pollstar, the concert industry trade magazine, has listed on its Web site (www.pollstar.com), these performances at the casino: Clint Black on July 5, Chubby Checker on July 19 and Merle Haggard on Aug. 1.

That just confirms the 2-1 odds of country versus any other genre.

Bill Blankenship can be reached

at (785) 295-1284

or bill.blankenship@cjonline.com.