Downtown Hoedown opens with $20 daily fee

**Casual** · June-09-12, 12:41 AM

WYCD's Downtown Hoedown kicked off with sunny skies and music flowing throughout downtown Detroit.While tickets for the first night and weekend passes were sold out months ago, some early arriving concertgoers were unhappy with the $20 daily fee and the change in venue from Hart Plaza to Comerica Park."This was listed as the biggest free country music festival in the world," said Wendy Kurzel of Ypsilanti. "Where's the money going? Is it going to feed the poor or to help kids?Darrell Leslie of Ann Arbor also is unhappy the event is no longer free."It is terrible," he said. "They are taking away an opportunity for all people to enjoy the festival."Friday night's headliner, Josh Gracin, goes on at 10:05 p.m.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...440/1361/rss41

**Casual** · June-09-12, 12:42 AM

LOL! It was only a matter of time before the organizers decided to make this thing more exclusive.

Im sure a lot of homeless people are upset.

**downtown_racine** · June-09-12, 07:22 AM

Whining azz people, I wonder if they work for free and give stuff away willy nilly.

**jcole** · June-09-12, 08:45 AM

It was free Friday but 20 bucks today and tomorrow, so if those girls were there last night and bitching that they had to pay, they got took.

**DetroitPlanner** · June-09-12, 09:55 AM

Charging a fee was the only way to pay for police and security.

**webband1** · June-09-12, 02:24 PM

Watched a good 20 minutes of the concert last night while standing on the 75 service drive right next to the stage. It was oddly the only part of the fence not covered in banners. Concert was still free for me.

**Hypestyles** · June-09-12, 03:10 PM

next year.. $50 tickets?

**Pam** · June-09-12, 04:57 PM

20 bucks for a whole day? So that's multiple artists right? Why are they complaining- you could pay way more than that these days for a concert with one act.

**adamjab19** · June-10-12, 08:07 AM

Originally Posted by Pam

20 bucks for a whole day? So that's multiple artists right? Why are they complaining- you could pay way more than that these days for a concert with one act.

It took a good 4-5 years for people to stop bitching about the charges with the techno fest. But as long as the promoters bring in worth while talent people will get over it. If I was a fan of it I would be more pissed that it is in an F-ing parking lot. How a parking lot is a legitimate venue is beyond me.

**ThisIsForTheHeart** · June-10-12, 08:33 AM

I looked at the lineup and I did not see the big names like Big and Rich [[you know those people who sang save a horse ride a cowboy), Taylor Swift and Rascal Flats. I'm not a country fan, so paying is a put off for me to go down there if i don't see big names for a genre of music I don't really listen too. If they had big names, I would be curious enough to go down and pay.

I would have gone down and met up with friends and ate and drank and restaurants and bars and just hang with friends at the event and not pay attention to the music but socialize with them if the hoedown was still free entry.

**Zacha341** · June-10-12, 08:52 AM

I was downtown in it last night... it was really busy right there at Comerica Pk as Steve Harvey had a sold out show at the Fox! Grid lock for driving at points [[I took some back roads to get home) but everyone seemed to be having fun at the two distinct events. Parking was well... hiked up and hard to find. If you didn't leave home early, you arrived late, which was an issue for the Harvey show when at curtain call!

Parking lot option? Well it seemed pretty well decked out from what I could see from the street. Recall that New Center Festival [[what was it called?) all those years, nicely converted the lot adjacent to the Fisher Theater for the main stage. I saw Isaac Hayes there a few years back. But then that was free concert.

Originally Posted by adamjab19

It took a good 4-5 years for people to stop bitching about the charges with the techno fest. But as long as the promoters bring in worth while talent people will get over it. If I was a fan of it I would be more pissed that it is in an F-ing parking lot. How a parking lot is a legitimate venue is beyond me.

**jerrytimes** · June-10-12, 09:24 AM

If I liked country music I'd pay $20 for a day full of live music. It's typical though that something that's free isn't anymore. Just like DEMF which was $55 this year.

**401don** · June-10-12, 04:27 PM

Is there anywhere to sit or do you just stand there baking in the parking lot? At least at Hart Plaza you can find some shade or sit down by the river for a bit.

**corktownyuppie** · June-10-12, 04:40 PM

I think that something has been lost in the mainstream understanding, and it's that nothing is free, and nothing ever has been. Sure, there are things that seem free, like the Thanksgiving Day Parade or YouTube or DetroitYes or public education. But they're only free because someone else was willing to pay for it, and we've been able to benefit through the process.

I hear people bitching about spending $20 to have a safe space to with an entire day's worth of events, and it's like when people bitch about spending $10 per year per car to go on Belle Isle or their copays go from $10-$25. Nothing is free.

You want to listen to WYCD? You better hope they find sponsors to buy commercials. You wanna listen to WRCJ or WDET? You better hope they find enough donors to fund it. You want to pay the same co-pays for drugs that you used to pay back in 1980? Ok. Then you don't get to have any drugs that were invented after 1980.

Nothing is free. Roads aren't free. Transit isn't free. The public good isn't free. Police and Fire service aren't free.

Am I just getting old? Or did we just stop teaching this to our kids?

**Wheels** · June-10-12, 04:53 PM

This whole thread is silly. It's based on an interview with two people.
Let the majority do the talking!

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...wntown-Hoedown

**canuck** · June-10-12, 06:58 PM

Originally Posted by corktownyuppie

I think that something has been lost in the mainstream understanding, and it's that nothing is free, and nothing ever has been. Sure, there are things that seem free, like the Thanksgiving Day Parade or YouTube or DetroitYes or public education. But they're only free because someone else was willing to pay for it, and we've been able to benefit through the process.

I hear people bitching about spending $20 to have a safe space to with an entire day's worth of events, and it's like when people bitch about spending $10 per year per car to go on Belle Isle or their copays go from $10-$25. Nothing is free.

You want to listen to WYCD? You better hope they find sponsors to buy commercials. You wanna listen to WRCJ or WDET? You better hope they find enough donors to fund it. You want to pay the same co-pays for drugs that you used to pay back in 1980? Ok. Then you don't get to have any drugs that were invented after 1980.

Nothing is free. Roads aren't free. Transit isn't free. The public good isn't free. Police and Fire service aren't free.

Am I just getting old? Or did we just stop teaching this to our kids?

How tchroo.

This is smack about what is happening in Montreal and the student strikes. A hundred some odd days of striking, demonstrations and riots with police. Student associations started a movement to counter the hike over three years which would have still kept the rates lower than anywhere in NAmerica and moved on to ask for free tuition. Internationally the movement picked up steam in New York, London, Brussels, and Moscow in support of Quebec students when a law was passed to stop the demos and heavy fines were handed to some leaders and offenders of all sorts.

Now, all kinds of splinter groups are mixed up in this, and the Grand Prix was disrupted by folks claiming that the whole sexist capitalist wastefulness is to be banned. They are complaining about the abuse of prostitutes that are forced to ply their trade overtime in strip joints etc...

They demonstrate by marching stark naked, to counter said exploitation. Cool, but what about freedom from the kind of judgement that irks their little feelings. There is something here that smells of the kind of churchy preachy stuff that people rebeled against, and they want their movement unfettered but it wont be for free I tell you.

**TexasT** · June-11-12, 09:17 AM

I went down to the Hoedown. There were some big names - Montgomery Gentry, Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert. This was my first time going so I can't compare it to years before but it was busy and fun. They had a small stage inside of Comerica and the concessions were open there as well.

From the Saturday night concert:

**black gold man** · June-11-12, 09:45 AM

There is video on youtube i watched about 6 nothing i like.

This is country

**Hypestyles** · June-12-12, 12:47 AM

A group of people should start an alternative hoedown, at another venue location, for a lower cost... Why should WYCD have the monopoly?

**noise** · June-12-12, 07:38 AM

If they had, in fact, been billing themselves as "the biggest free country music festival in the world," like the woman in the story claimed, why would anyone care to insult the people expecting it to be free?