Foothills Hits High Note With 1st Sellout Concert

Gordon Lightfoot Tickets Gone With 19 Days ’til Event


By JIM KEVLIN

Foothills, the little performing arts and civic center that could.
That was the feeling around Oneonta’s $7 million, 625-seat, state-of-the-art facility this week after tickets for the upcoming Gordon Lightfoot concert sold out Saturday, March 12.
The sellout, the first in the new facility’s history, happened less than a month since tickets went on sale and 19 days before the Friday, July 31, event.
“It lets you know that bringing in the right artist at the right price and the right venue is a recipe for success,” said Jon Weiss, the Oneonta Theater promoter who collaborated with Foothills on this project.
The 300 “gold” tickets, $71 apiece, sold out first, followed by the “silver” tickets at $60.  Another 75 seats were added, and they also sold at the “silver” level.
Lightfoot is the “first nationally known talent – world-known talent” to perform at Foothills, said Executive Director Janet Quackenbush.
“It tells me that with properly selected entertainers and price points, we can draw significant crowds to that facility and to Oneonta,” said Mayor Dick Miller, who took over as interim chair of the Foothills board of directors in December.
It also suggests that Miller’s economic development strategy – using arts and entertainment as a magnet to bring outside people (and money) to the city – is gaining traction.
Foothills is just one piece of it.  A second is the Arts Task Force that grew out of two Arts Summits hosted by the mayor in January and February.  And it includes Main Street Oneonta’s expanding schedule of events, from the Mardi Gras Tuesday, March 8, and the St. Patty’s Day celebration on Thursday the 17th, both on Kim Muller Plaza.
Miller credited Weiss with coming up with the Gordon Lightfoot booking, and Weiss credited Ben Guenther, the Five Star Subaru co-owner who has been a mainstay of numerous cultural events in the past year, with suggesting the aging, but still vital, Canadian folk singer.
“I just had a gut feeling he would do very well here,” said Guenther, given local demographics means “a lot of people my age are familiar with ‘Edmund Fitzgerald’,” and also proximity to Canada.
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” the ballad based on the sinking of a freighter in Lake Erie, catapulted Lightfoot to international fame in the 1960s.  But other songs, “If You Could Read My Mind” (1970), which hit Number 5 on the U.S. charts, and “Sundown” (1974), “Carefree Highway” (1974) and “Rainy Day People” (1975), all Number 1s, cemented his reputation.
Weiss and Guenther approached the mayor just after the first summit with a proposal for a benefit concert for Foothills, which is about $1 million short of funding needed to install a kitchen, hang sound-proofing curtains at the back of the stage, and other final touches.
Going forward, the idea is to continue the collaboration between Foothills and the Oneonta Theater, sharing equipment and  scheduling complementary acts.
Weiss believes Foothills can succeed with “a minimum” of one Lightfoot-like act a month.  Guenther said he and Weiss are already working on the next show.  Miller said one key to success is to mix the demographics, so that different acts appeal to different market segments.
In addition to Five Star and the Oneonta Theatre, the mayor obtained sponsorships from Eastman Associates, Mirabito Energy Products, the Clark Companies (the Delhi-based sports-field builder) Bassett Healthcare and New York Central Mutual.
“Obviously this doesn’t help Five Star directly,” Guenther said of his motivation.  “But I feel if I help the community, it helps other businesses.  And if I help other businesses,  they turn around and do business with me.”