CARLTON FLETCHER: Albany budget offers hope for Civic Center revival

You won’t know anything unless you try, Might end up falling but you just might fly.

— Selena Gomez

I remember back in the ’80s, when the Albany Civic Center first opened and became the hottest concert venue in Georgia, driving to Albany from Ocilla to watch Zebra, Loverboy, Poison, Tesla, Bon Jovi and other artists perform.

I also remember, after moving here, watching Creed, ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Guns N Roses, Hank Jr., Travis Tritt, Charlie Daniels, 3 Doors Down, Shinedown, Bryan Adams, Widespread Panic and others at the Civic Center after it really hit its stride and became the No. 2-grossing music venue in Georgia.

(As an aside, I also remember wanting to see the reunited Monkees — yes, I was a huge Monkees fan, I make no apologies — at the venue but not having enough money to afford tickets and losing out on a chance to win tickets to see Stevie Wonder — one of my musical heroes — when I screwed up the phone number when calling Rock 103 to say “Fingertips Part II” was Stevie’s first No. 1 hit … sighhh.)

The last decade-plus, though, I’ve watched as the Civic Center, James Gray’s monument to consumerism in a then-bustling economy, has sat relatively vacant. Oh, there have been graduations and arena football games and the occasional trade show. But as a concert venue, the Albany Civic Center had devolved into pretty much a non-entity.

In the parlance of AA, rock-bottom for the Albany Civic Center came on Nov 4, 2005 when maybe 1,000 people showed up to watch Willie Nelson perform. (The announced attendance was 1,200, but that was a stretch.) I talked with Willie’s manager at the end of the show and he said words I’ll never forget: “I hope those people enjoyed seeing Willie, because they will never see him here again.” I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone more angry.

The people who’ve managed the venue in the decade since that woeful day — some who knew the promotions business inside out, others who were there to collect a pretty hefty paycheck for pretty much sitting around all day — have offered varying plans to generate interest in the Civic Center. The concensus has been — and, yes, this includes plans offered by people who were there for the paycheck — until the city allows the manager of the arena to promote shows, which means they’d have to put some green in the pot, it would remain a graduation/minor sporting events venue.

New city Recreation and Parks Director Joel Holmes, whose duties include management of the Civic Center, knew when he came to Albany that he faced an uphill battle in reversing the arena’s reputation among promoters. But while others were calling for the Civic Center to be razed, he had the audacity to ask the Albany City Commission for money — $200,000 worth — to promote shows in the arena.

“The Civic Center is costing the taxpayers of this community a considerable amount of money to operate,” Holmes told me in an earlier conversation. “The way things are now, when a promoter brings a show here, we only rent the venue. The promoter pays us a set fee and assumes responsibility for the success or failure of the show. The promoter’s also the one who stands to make money if the show is a success.”

Holmes told the commission the only way to cut into the deficit spending at the Civic Center is to promote events in-house. Certainly, he noted, there is risk involved. But there is also the opportunity for significant reward.

“We have to spend some money if we want to try and make some money and cut down on the amount taxpayers are paying to subsidize the Civic Center,” Holmes said.

Ward II Commissioner Bobby Coleman fought Holmes’ budget request for the “seed money” to start promoting events at the arena, but in the end the commission approved the city’s Fiscal Year 2016 spending plan with the funding in place. Holmes has wasted no time in getting the word out to promoters that the Civic Center is back in play.

“I’d touched base with some people while (budget) negotiations were going on, but there was no need in me trying to do something until I knew the money was going to be in our budget,” the Recreation and Parks director said. “But on Wednesday (the day after the budget passed), I started getting feelers out. I’ve already made some calls, and there are people who are interested.”

Holmes acknowledges that the Civic Center’s reputation makes it a tougher sale.

“The (promoters) who know the history here are aware of the way things have been the past few years,” he said. “But they’re also aware that it worked in the past. A lot of them are listening when I tell them it can work again. Some are leary — they’ll be careful — but they’re talking to us.”

That, those who’ve followed the arena’s history will attest, is progress. Surely there are needs in this community greater than reactivating an entertainment venue, but as a quality-of-life issue, few stand to have more impact. Holmes, for one, is willing to fight the venue’s history.

“At this time next year, I want to be able to go to the commission and say, ‘Look what we did,’” he said.

He’ll need our support to make it happen — the “There’s nothing to do here” folks will have to get off their collective duff and support the events — but here’s one vote of support for Holmes and for the City Commission for at least trying. Doing nothing and griping as a plan of action certainly hasn’t worked.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].