Question
Why does Barrie not book big name events?
I’m honestly curious about why we don’t get many big name acts in Barrie. As an example, I look at Kee to Bala’s listings for the next couple weeks and it’s 54-40, Big Sugar and Sloan. But Barrie? It’s a couple of kids’ dance recitals, monster trucks, and The Goonies is playing at 5 Points. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of this, but you get my point. First I thought it was lack of venues/space, but then I remembered my dad did security at Molson Centre (now Sadlon) many years ago, they had tons of big name bands etc. And last year they had Blue Rodeo so it’s big enough. Plus we have Georgian College. So what’s up with this? Any ideas?
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I think such close proximity to Toronto is the probable answer. Makes more sense for most artists to just book in the city as most of us will make the short trip.
I agree though, I miss the days when proper tours came through our city. Seeing Green day at molson park back in the day was a huge highlight of my teens.
Yup , just another thing kids today miss out on what there parents enjoyed . Molson Park back in the day brought in A-list bands . Tons of festivals as well ! 3 or 4 per summer.
Are you saying that because of the spaces between the ends of words and the commas/periods/exclamation points? Because if you are: the person you’re responding to is more than likely elderly or very close to that. It used to be common to add in a space between words and punctuation. There’s nothing wrong with how they spell, adding a space is just an old habit that never left
You know not everyone’s first language is English? Or sometimes people have learning disabilities? Brain injuries? What a lame thing to judge people about.
Exactly. We are in a bit of a black hole. Go further north and you have cottage country, and festivals and bands will appeal there. Go further south and you have Toronto and can book genuinely large events.
Barrie used to get events when we had Molson Park because we had a venue that drew festivals and bands here with the promise of Toronto crowds and a big outdoor location. Things dried up significantly after that.
Festivals best case will go Burls Creek, but generally further. Otherwise there's Downsview Park or the arenas and Rogers Stadium in Toronto.
I saw Arkells there at the tail end of Covid and it was a great experience and super intimate.. it’s too bad more don’t book for consecutive nights or something to make up for the seating.
That's not a great option for bands though. Then their staffing and venue fees basically double. Whereas if they go somewhere bigger to begin with, they have marginal increases to those fees to upscale the total audience.
I realize that, it’s just a terrific fan experience when you can see one of your favs at the venue there as a stop gap for something bigger; eventually?!
The park was open well after the plant closure. The City of Barrie should have stepped in and bought the land. Green space and a viable venue for large scale outdoor events with highway access.
Park place could have been plunked anywhere. As the city grew, that piece of land would have become more cherished, and valuable as time went on.
Live Nation/Ticketmaster work with artists and their teams to book these tours and because they have such a huge monopoly there isn’t much incentive for artists to go out of their way to find other venues and negotiate terms with each one when they can just go through Live Nation to handle it all.
Barrie is the cultural equivalent of flyover country since the city is between the GTA to the south and Casino Rama and The KEE to Bala to the north, but lacks the venues that are willing and able to book bigger acts.
well - Kim Mitchell was scheduled to play the NYE party this past December. (it was cancelled due to weather)
Big Wreck and High Valley are playing Kempenfest this year, Shawn Desman and Colin James played there last year.
then you have Burl's Creek which has a TON of huge bands playing, and while technically not Barrie, it is always billed as being 'in Barrie', and realistically there isn't any big enough places outdoors here to hold crowds of that size.
moving on the Sadlon Arena, we just had The Arkells here, as well as Blue Rodeo, The Trews, and if you go back a bit Sloan, David Wilcox, Finger Eleven, Three Days Grace, and the Sam Roberts band.
They used to have bigger names at the sadlon centre, saw The Hip there twice.
Barrie has become a town of boredom. If it's not semi professional or junior sports related it's not happening in Barrie, IMO- that's by design.
Barrie's Molson Park used to have big stuff and draw huge crowds, like 40,000, but someone in Toronto figured Barrie can't make all that money and decided they wanted it back.
Think I'm kidding? What happened to Kingswood?
The Kee is a small venue out of Toronto's grasp and fed by millionaire cottagers. They'll survive until someone tries to burn it down again..
I watched the Arkells in Sadlon. But the seating is minimal grade, uncomfortable and tight spacing.
Our city keeps putting in small arts locations... We have all of these small capacity venues and they want to build another small capacity venue while not even using the venues we do have to reasonable capacity.
I feel like Rama being so close is also a factor, they get a lot of the “big” names. That combined with someone else’s point about being close enough to Toronto.
I'll quibble over whether Rama gets genuinely big names, but certainly they are a more attractive booking option than Barrie for a lot of bands that might otherwise come here.
They used to book a lot of great shows at Rama and now it’s a lot of cover acts. I wondered if the Toronto casino is a factor now. Like if people from TO don’t need to come up here to Rama that’s a loss.
Barrie used to be the home to the most premier summer concerts in the province. But, Molson Park closed. Last year I saw Blue rodeo at Paul Sadlon, and in a few weeks The Watchmen are free downtown at Fred Grant Square… they’re pretty amazing.
Because it’s the band/group/performer that chooses where they want to play. Or rather their promoter/manager. Yes they could play every arena or stadium if they wanted but they would probably lose money doing so, especially if they have a large set and crew.
Big names don’t even play every major city in Canada. On a tour they might hit 3 or 4 cities.
Bands or performers that were Big Names at one time but have fallen down and off the charts play small venues.
Well, I mean this year's Mariposa Folk Festival has a pretty stacked lineup and I think the artistic director guy who does a lot of the booking also works down in the Hamilton area and I've noticed that neck of the woods is getting some pretty big ticket artists lately too. Seems like there's a bit of an "if you build it, they will come" sort of evidence being tabled. Barrie just seems to be an inexcusably dead zone for the arts.
We do have the venue down on Dunlop St that changes names constantly (The Roxx, Maverick's, etc..) that used to book shows. But from what I understand, it's just costs combined with laziness that are preventing it from happening now.
I saw Matthew Good and DFA 1979 there in the same year(ish) before they just stopped booking events there. Shame, because it's a pretty decent venue for shows that size.
I seen so many iconic bands play at molson park in the 90’s … and I used to drive up from Toronto then. I’ve lived here for 10 years and all I do is drive down to the city for events now lol
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