If you are putting on a show aimed at 20 and 30 something adults, does the venue need to sell alcohol for it to be a success?

If you happened to read the NxSW concert review, you know that day one of this supposedly huge music festival was very poorly attended, save for Polyphonic Spree's set. Why was this? Is it because ellum:ONSTAGE is a non-smoking, non-alcohol permitting venue run by a church in the middle of Deep Ellum, an area that's slowly becoming known for it's fading music scene?

If you consider other venues that don't serve alcohol around here, like the Door(s) in Dallas and Fort Worth, or Fat Daddy's Sound Shack (which is actually getting beer soon), they don't seem to do too badly with bringing in a crowd. But what crowd are they going for? The majority of the Door's crowd are kids too young to drink (legally) anyway, and are probably just psyched to have a venue to go to. Fat Daddy's in Lewisville doesn't seem to be suffering too badly either, given the younger age demographic of their typical customer.

But ellum:ONSTAGE is not just aiming for the younger crowd. In fact several of the local performers on Saturday have more mature followings (mature as in 21 to 40-year-olds and up) like Salim Nourallah, Johnny Lloyd Rollins, and Polyphonic Spree. And looking at the future shows, there seems to be a preponderance of slower, experimental rock and indie groups. Not really what the pre-21 crowd is known to clamor for. So does that mean those shows will suffer as well? Maybe it takes the environment that naturally comes with the selling of alcohol to make people willing to take a chance on a band. Because, if the band isn't that great, at least you can get a beer and hang out for a bit. Hell, after a couple beers, you might even start to like the music, who knows.

Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on the turnout for one show, but wow it really was depressing, and embarrassing, to see some of this area's best musicians playing to a non-existent crowd.

Of course, there could have been other reasons:

A) For a festival, it was very un-festival like. I mean, there was constant music playing on two stages, and while that could be enough, for people to spend their whole day at it, there should probably be a little more to it (i.e. Warped Tour, EdgeFest, and so on).

B) How well was it promoted? Seems like with 102.1 The Edge behind it, you might have heard more about it. I happened to catch a radio ad or two about it, but maybe that wasn't enough.

C) Is it just typical of Dallas venues to put the burden of bringing in the crowd on the artists themselves?

And of course, there have got to be other possibilities that I just don't have the time to hash out. But the thing that keeps getting tossed around here is the whole "no-alcohol" thing at a venue intended for "of-drinking-age" crowds. Hell if I have a good answer, but I am curious as to what others may be thinking.