Pegasus News - Dallas/Fort Worth

Although I'm not down with the usual rampant band-dissingin Sam Machkovech's latest column, I'm with him on the thesis that Dallas should be home to a great annual music fest blowout a la' ACL/Lollapallooza/Bonnarroo/Name your fest here ____________.

We count every click on every page of our site -- and month after month, all of the top show pages are festivals of some ilk. LAST month, 1,313 people looked at our page for Edgefest. Over 4,000 people have come to our site in the past couple weeks via a Google search for Edgefest.

That's not to say Edgefest is the end-all of festivals by any means -- Just an illustration that there IS demand for big music fests in Dallas. Anyone remember Eric Clapton picking Fair Park as the location for his big guitar shindig a few years back? Despite ridiculous heat, it drew quite a crowd.

I first made this pitch when Atlanta's Midtown Music Festival gave up the ghost: Somebody could do quite nicely putting on a music festival in our area, particularly if it was off-cycle with ACL and Jazzfest. Could Charles Attal utilize economies of scale with a trifecta of ACL, Lollapalooza, and Dallas? Could KERA use such a gathering as a means of connecting with younger viewers/listeners while generating a ton of content for its next pledge drive?

IF such a fest were to come off, I do have a few suggestions that would make the Dallas fest stand out in a crowded national marketplace:

1.) Fewer bands / longer sets. Kansas' Wakarusa does a good job of this. I know I face an annual dilemma with ACL of going to the fest for the hodgepodge or catching full sets as my favorites make their gas stop through Dallas. I'm not suggesting a sparse lineup, but 18 bands a day sounds like plenty to me, as opposed to ACL's 44.

2.) Take advantage of our lack of meaningful winter. How about March? Or November?

3.) Don't make all the local bands play in the morning before anyone shows up. It sucks for the bands, and doesn't achieve the goal of exposing them to new listeners. How about a setup where the food/beverage area is off to the side and local bands play on a stage there-- all day long?

4.) If at all possible, get artists to collaborate. I know scheduling and setup are issues, but why gather many of the world's greatest musicians -- many of whom respect the hell out of each other -- without putting them together? At the outside, I'm always amazed (and disappointed) that there isn't more of this at ACL. Lyle Lovett and Al Green have collaborated already, and they play on the same day and don't do a couple tunes together? Even better, what about more eclectic mashups, and multi-genre all-star jams? These would make the festival especially memorable.

So, who wants to do it?