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they should have a giant ultimate frisbee tournament on the commons, then arrest everyone who showed up and throw away the key, thus eliminating an entire generation of would be yuppies which will in turn hurt sales at volkswagen and finally, satisfy my desire for revenge on the germans for shooting down my mom's great uncle in world war 2.

take THAT diva's!

At the end of the day, doesn't this boil down to being the fault of the city and Events Halifax having no idea what their target audience wants? They obviously booked an act that the majority of the population had little or no interest in seeing in the venue. As a result, that act pulled out when they discovered the obvious lukewarm sentiment.

I mean, columns like David Rodenhiser's make it sound like it's our duty to go to shows like Dion just so that we could ever have a shot at getting someone a little more awesome and that just because I have no interest at all in seeing Dion perform somehow makes me a bad person who is holding Halifax back. But for fucks sake, why didn't HRM/EH do some market research beforehand instead of just randomly booking acts and assuming people would show? It's a long road musically from the Stones to Dion.

for the same reason they build the off ramps that don't make sense, and pass laws about having to register your cat or we'll kill it, etc...

Funnily enough, HRM/EH normally does do market research beforehand, which includes calling people like me to gauge how certain acts might do in this area, but apparently somebody thought Celine was a slam dunk. After all, they loved her in Vegas!

There's no question that Dion is popular and has a huge fanbase, but if they can afford to fly to Vegas to see her, they sure as heck won't want to pay top dollar to stand in a field to do the same thing.

not really.

See, that just bothers me more.
I don't like being blamed for things when I didn't do anything wrong (like laughing when Dion was announced) and it's just frustrating to see people like Scott Ferguson and Fred MacGillivray gripe in the paper about how this will deter other acts from wanting to come to Halifax.
It just reeks of mismanagement.



Whatever. I know this is locals and you're all super-cool music people with an apathy for establishment. But most of the people who went to see the Stones aren't the same crowd that would probably go see Dion. There is no doubt some cross-over in the audience, but you're not going to attract Joe Sixpack, who was there to see the Stones. And for a concert this size, you need Joe Sixpack.

I kind of understand where she's coming from.

I hope she's curled up in a ball in her bed, crying her little giraffe-girl eyes out about the mean things people say about her in bad ol' Halifax.

I honestly hope that she plays Moncton to show everyone in Halifax what a great show it could have been. I am not a fan but she is one the biggest female artists in the world and we shoot her down for coming to play a concert here? If you don't like it, don't go.

I think the problem was that everyone has been expecting them to announce a big rock show for the past year or so as they have been throwing out names like U2, The Eagles, AC/DC, etc. and then they give us Celine Dion. If they had said that she was the 2nd of 3 concerts people would have accepted it much easier and it would have been a great show. I am embarrased by this and we are burning bridges with promoters for large concerts here. Even the promomter for the Stones said the Moncton made it much easier to put on the show than Halifax did.

Quebec?

I wonder if they read Locals.

Argh...Shelagh Rogers just played Nickelback.

Why do I have a bad feeling they're next on the list?

Most of this could have been avoided if they had announced a different concert (or two) first.

You're right, Salty - the people were expecting to hear U2, Eagles, AC/DC, Elton John, etc. They took much offense to being offered Cewine instead.

I honestly think that if the announcement would've been Show 1 = The Eagles, Show 2 = AC/DC, and Show 3 = Celine Dion, there would've been MUCH less of an outcry, if any at all.

I don't agree with how we've acted as a city towards a megastar coming to perform here, but I also don't agree that she is the best choice for such a big show. There's a lot riding on the use of the commons, big names have been thrown around, and Celine is a big of a slap in the face to the thousands who are expecting a rock show.

WHAT? lew.

isten to me.

i'm playing Sigur Ros and Beirut.

i've seen a guy who can push a lit cigarette up his nose and pull it out his ear. he also has a talent a lot of people don't have.