They’re coming to town?!

What does it take to bring a kick-ass show to Springfield? Here’s the scoop

CLICK HERE TO WIN TICKETS TO SEE HINDER AT THE SHRINE MOSQUE ON FEBRUARY 27!

“I don’t like to go to Vegas, but I like to promote shows,” Tom Morris says near the end of an exasperatingly busy week. As he talks the AFI concert he’s promoting at the Shrine Mosque is less than a week away, Hinder is scheduled to come to town a couple of weeks after that and there’s a show with Styx looming on the horizon. You might say Morris, president of omnipresent local booking firm FM Productions, has a few bets on the table.

But this is the double-down world in which a concert promoter lives, Morris says, particularly when trying to build a city such as Springfield up to be a viable destination for big acts. The groundwork is laid with small local shows, which attract mid-level concerts, which open doors to nationally touring acts. Kevin Willis of Zeitgeist Productions, another local promoting group that often works hand-in-hand with FM Productions on large-scale shows such as Rockfest, says many of the shows he books are mid-level and regional acts, which makes his job significantly easier than Morris’s. “Most of the time, (regional bands) are trying to contact you,” he says.

The hard part, Willis says, is maintaining contacts at promotions agencies. Establishing a good rapport with a desired band’s agency can sometimes mean booking a different band first—even if that show results in a loss—to establish a relationship. When it comes to booking shows, Willis says, gains and losses have to be taken in stride. For example, the AFI show he put together brought in a net loss for Zeitgeist, but the show with Three Days Grace and Buckcherry a few weeks earlier turned a profit. Other times things fall into place, such as with the 311 concert at the Oasis Convention Center in March 2006, which Willis describes as one of the most effortless shows he’s ever been involved with. A more recent example was Kill Hannah February 3 at Remmington’s Downtown, a regional band from Michigan. It wasn’t especially profitable, Willis says, but it was problem-free. “The people we deal with are pretty laid-back,” he says.



The connections Willis makes at Zeitgeist can pay dividends when he works with Morris and FM Productions to book a nationally touring act. But while big-name acts a must-have when establishing a scene, dealing with such performers (and their promoters) can be a pain. As Willis points out, the agents in charge of big-name bands are the ones most concerned with money. They tend to be very particular about amenities, too, which is a problem Morris is very familiar with. “They don’t want the same bologna sandwich in Springfield that they had in St. Louis,” he says.

It’s with such peculiar tastes in mind that Morris says he is developing an in-house catering service to serve bands the meals they want. The menu for the AFI show, for example, is chicken cordon bleu served on white tablecloths with candles for Valentine’s Day.
Having a show on Valentine’s Day may seem unusual, but Morris says often weeknights are the only time to book bigger bands, on “off nights” between gigs in major cities. Because concert promoters are at the mercy of bands and their availability, there is little rhyme or reason for when some groups come to town. For example, ’70s rock heroes The Moody Blues followed by Styx? It’s not a trend toward more Boomer shows, just pure coincidence, Morris says.

And sometimes, even when a show loses money, it’s worth the headache. When Morris booked Willie Nelson to play at Remington’s on Republic Road in September 2003, it came on the heels of a cancellation six months earlier. Morris couldn’t give refunds because Nelson’s promoter was uninsured. Instead, Morris had to book a weeknight concert and give tickets to that show as compensation. Morris says he had no choice in the date, but Nelson called Morris on his personal phone to thank him and arranged to do three radio interviews while he was in town. When the two met before the show, Nelson looked at Morris and said, “good to see you again.”

“That was like gold to me,” Morris says. Gold he likely wouldn’t gamble in Vegas, either.

CLICK HERE TO WIN TICKETS TO SEE HINDER AT THE SHRINE MOSQUE ON FEBRUARY 27!