When veteran music festival producer Quint Davis first pitched his Los Angeles-based partners on the idea of doing a country music fest in Tiger Stadium back in 2008, they were more than a little skeptical.
As Business Report details in its new cover story, though Davis had an established relationship with the investors—mega event producer AEG Live—and a proven track record as the high-energy producer of the wildly successful New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, a $6 million stadium concert in Baton Rouge on Memorial Day weekend seemed risky.
The Capital City doesn’t draw crowds like New Orleans, and though Tiger Stadium is renowned as an athletic venue, it had never before hosted a concert—much less a country music fest in the heat of early summer on a weekend when most folks head out of town.
“So I went to [AEG] and said, ‘Look, if I can raise $1 million down there, is it a go?’ and they said yes,” recalls Davis, whose boyish demeanor belies his 67 years. “I think they figured they’d never have to talk to me again. Who’s going to raise $1 million in Louisiana during the worst economic downturn in decades?”
As it turns out, Davis did.
Within months, he’d raised his million—roughly one-third each from Visit Baton Rouge, the city-parish and the state. He went back to AEG, commitments in hand, and Bayou Country Superfest was born. The first show, in 2010, drew crowds of more than 85,000, thanks to such headline acts as Kenny Chesney and the then-19-year-old Taylor Swift. Most music festivals lose money their first year. Bayou Country Superfest was a success from the get-go.
Not that every year has been as good as the first. In 2011, attendance fell 12%. It held steady in 2012 then fell again by 6% in 2013 before skyrocketing last year, when the festival expanded to three days and brought in some of the biggest names in country music.
This year is again expected to be a blockbuster: Taylor Swift will perform in Tiger Stadium as part of her world tour the night before Superfest starts, effectively making the festival feel like a three-day event though technically it is not.
But even in the years when festival attendance has been slightly off, Bayou Country Superfest has been an unqualified success for the city-parish and the local economy. Though there are no official economic impact studies, the festival has brought hundreds of thousands of people to the area who sleep in local hotels, eat out in local restaurants and Tweet and Snapchat their positive experiences all over the globe, easily justifying the more than $3.5 million in incentives that local and state government have spent over the years to keep Superfest coming to Baton Rouge.
Perhaps more importantly, Superfest has become an established brand with which Baton Rouge is nationally identified. There are two spinoff Superfests now—Florida Country Superfest in Jacksonville, Florida, and, debuting next month, Buckeye Country Superfest in Columbus, Ohio. More may be on the way. Baton Rouge has the distinction of being the original, which gives the city a prestige that money can’t buy, according to local tourism officials.
“For the past five years it has been the premier event in Tiger Stadium, bigger than any football game,” says Visit Baton Rouge President and CEO Paul Arrigo.
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