If you've walked around downtown Raleigh in recent weeks, you've seen the hopscotch courts chalked onto sidewalks and buildings. This isn't child's play, however. It's the largest music festival anyone has ever attempted in Raleigh - and a very large gamble for The Independent, the local weekly paper, which is spending almost $350,000 to put it on.
"It's not intended to be a money-maker, at least at first," says Hopscotch director Greg Lowenhagen, the Independent's marketing manager. "In the long run, potentially yes. But it's re-branding, a foray into something new. If we break even, great."
The festival that kicks off Thursday features more than 120 national, international and local acts playing at 10 downtown venues over three nights. Organizers hope it grows into a destination festival along the lines of South By Southwest, which each spring draws more than 1,000 acts, tens of thousands of attendees and an estimated $100 million to Austin, Texas.
But that kind of impact would be a ways off. In its initial incarnation, Hopscotch will show off the Triangle music scene while also showcasing out-of-town acts prominent in the alternative-music world. Fabled rap group Public Enemy, Canadian alternative-rock troupe Broken Social Scene and the acclaimed experimental musician Noah "Panda Bear" Lennox are the main out-of-town acts, alongside most of the leading local lights - Rosebuds, Megafaun, Love Language, 9th Wonder and more.
Organizers have sold about 1,800 wristbands (priced from $45 to $85), which attendees will use for admission at different venues. About 270 wristband-buyers are from elsewhere, organizers said. Venues range from 5,000-capacity City Plaza down to clubs that hold around 100 people.
Free shows, events
There will also be free daytime shows and events, including an artist-and-author series of discussions between artists and critics. The program even includes a free "Pops in the City" concert by the N.C. Symphony at the Raleigh Amphitheater downtown.
"We're excited to have the festival come here," says Brandi Barnart of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance. "We think it will be a great thing for the plaza and downtown Raleigh, good for the hotels, bars and restaurants. Bands are coming in from out of town, and so are some other people."
The idea germinates
Hopscotch has been in the works since June 2009, when the recently arrived Lowen hagen pitched it to his bosses at The Independent. Steve Schewel, the paper's founder and owner, is covering the festival's costs.
It wasn't lost on anyone connected with The Independent that South By Southwest has been a major boon for the weekly paper that launched it, the Austin Chronicle. The hordes that descend for South By Southwest every March dominate Austin - and the city embraces the chaos, happy for the economic impact. Lowenhagen used to live in Austin, and he has similar hopes for Hopscotch.
"At some point in the future," Lowenhagen says, "I want Hopscotch to take over the city for a weekend."
Early on, however, not everyone was sold on Hopscotch's viability.
B.J. Barham, frontman for the popular Raleigh roots-rock band American Aquarium, was skeptical when festival organizers first contacted him about playing. But his band is on the Thursday night schedule, and he's convinced.
"Talk to me afterward and we'll see how it went," Barham says. "But I'm excited. I'd be worried if it seemed thrown together, and how they've got everything planned out seems excellent."
More for the money
Hopscotch is also in-tune with larger trends within the music industry. The sluggish economy has taken a heavy toll on discretionary entertainment spending, especially concerts. After years of growth, ticket sales for the top 100 tours in America fell 14 percent the first half of 2010, according to the trade magazine Pollstar.
But multiple-act festivals, which offer more musical bang per buck, have boomed. Hopscotch joins a landscape dominated by South By Southwest as well as Bonnaroo in Tennessee, Lollapalooza in Chicago, Bumbershoot in Seattle and Coachella in California - enormous festivals that draw tens or even hundreds of thousands of attendees. Smaller festivals have also proliferated.
"Up until this year, we rarely did festivals," Barham says. "But we just played our seventh of this year. More and more, they seem like the thing to do. My image of festivals used to be a bunch of hippies hula-hooping up in the mountains. But if this is the way of the future, bring it."
Looking for a niche
Even if Hopscotch takes off, it's unlikely it will challenge South By Southwest at the top of the food chain. But there might be a niche for it further down the food chain.
Ashley Capps, co-founder of the hugely successful Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival (which draws six-figure crowds to rural Tennessee every June), has some experience at launching music festivals. Bonnaroo management also oversees a smaller event called Moogfest, an electronic-focused festival in Asheville in October.
"It's very difficult to try and re-create someone else's success," Capps says. "Many have tried, and it's a very challenging business model. It's noteasy to program them in such a way that there's synergy. But I still think there's an infinite amount of opportunity for festivals, as long as there's a unique spin."
'Public Enemies'?
Meantime, Hopscotch organizers will spend the coming days making frantic last-minute preparations - including the chalk promotional campaign.
Grayson Currin, who is The Independent's music editor, even got a ticket for the cause when a police officer recently caught him marking up a downtown sidewalk to promote Hopscotch's Public Enemy show. It was a case of worlds colliding.
"The ticket says, 'Writing the words "Public Enemies" on public property,' " Currin says. "The cop had never heard of Public Enemy. She asked if I was in the band."
