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Friday Night, Main Street, Live Music — What’s So Hard About This, Madison?

You may recall that earlier this year, the Madison City Commission denied the Madison Area Arts Council's request to block off the south end of Main Street for an evening of live music and other frivolity. Commissioners fretted that blocking traffic on Main Street could cause problems and urged MAAC to pick another location for White Night. MAAC did, out of town, at Prairie Village, which was plenty of fun.

The City of Spearfish must not be as conscientious about protecting public safety and the free flow of traffic. My family and I walked (walked, as in went to five different places during the day and didn't use one drop of gasoline) downtown last night and found this monstrous obstruction of traffic:

Six Mile Road gets ready to perform on Main Street Spearfish, Friday night, September 2, 2011
Menace to traffic... or creative cultural and economic development downtown?

Aaahhh! It's a traffic hazard! Someone dropped a stage and a bluegrass band right in the middle of Main Street! Cars can't get from Point A to Point B without going to Point C! Help! Where's the City Commission?

Crowd enjoys Six Mile Road on Main Street, Spearfish, South Dakota, Friday night, September 2, 2011
Blocking traffic, drinking beer... boosting sales tax revenue on a Friday night....

Aaahhh!!! They're sitting in the middle of Main Street with hundreds of other people! We're all gonna die!

Actually, this was just another normal Friday night in Spearfish. The Spearfish Downtown Business Association sponsors live music on Main Street every Friday night throughout the summer. Last night was Six Mile Road's turn to entertain locals and visitors who may have hopped off the Interstate, rolled downtown, and said, "Holy cow, look at that! A band on Main Street! Let's stay a while!" Music has that effect on people.

Music also brings business. There were maybe a dozen different tents and carts amid the crowd, folks selling corndogs and beverages of various potency. Kids could get their faces painted (including at least one of my high school French students, who was walking around with his pals with full war paint and big smiles on their faces). Some downtown shops stayed open for the event. People crowded the art gallery for an artist reception and free smokies (which were all snarfed up by the time I got there—nertz!). I don't know if the gallery sold any paintings or pots, but the gallery had more chance of doing so last night than it would have if the street were empty and the doors closed.

The obstruction wrought by all this music and culture and commerce has brought little comparative disadvantage to Main Street this year, since crews have been tearing up and replacing the whole street this summer. The block down by the bike shop resembles the Grand Canyon. Even after the final downtown concert next Friday, we still won't be able to bike the length of this wonderful Main Street until fall.

But the Spearfish Downtown Business Association has been hosting Downtown Friday Nights for many years. Former Madison Chamber of Commerce exec Sascha Albrecht* noticed that Spearfish was throwing these successful soirées four years ago. She recommended in her August 2007 newsletter that Madison do something similar. Madison, of course, didn't and now actively opposes groups who would dare suggest such an audacious plan.

(In random news, Sascha Albrecht is in Spearfish today getting married at the fish hatchery! Congratulations, Sascha!)

Music on Main Street isn't hard. Bands want to play. People want to dance, or sit and listen, or socialize. At least a few businesses and non-profits will be eager for another chance to separate folks from their money. This kind of event works wonderfully in Spearfish. It can work in Madison... and it doesn't have to be a once-a-year super-special event. It could happen every Friday in the summertime, as it does here in Spearfish.

23 Comments

  1. RGoeman 2011.09.03

    Events are terrific for any community and Spearfish attracts strong tourism traffic. We can all learn from their example. While visiting our daughter, we noticed that every Friday night before a home FSU football game, the downtown holds "Downtown Get Down" with "live" music, food vendors, children's events and tons, tons, tons of people, young and older. All the restaurants and bars do a bang-up job and generate bunchs of retail sales and sales tax. Might be a thought for home DSU games? And yes, there was a four-block area blocked off, just like Sioux Falls when it blocks off several blocks downtown for Automania, Hot Harley Nights, Downtown Arts Festival and other events throughout the summer.

  2. Michael Black 2011.09.03

    You are blindly assuming that what works for one town should be able to be duplicated everywhere else. It doesn't work that way.

    We have a great summer rec program for softball, baseball and T-Ball. We have the Community Center. We have Prairie Village. We have Miracle Treat Day at DeLon Mork's Dairy Queen. We have Lake Herman State Park and Lake Madison. We have Dakota State University. We have a new swimming pool. We have football, volleyball and basketball games at the college and high school level. We have church activities.

  3. Shane Gerlach 2011.09.03

    Rod and Corey...you know you have to leave main street wide open during the evenings so people can view the closed by 5:00 pm stores and empty stores.
    Why would anyone want to disrupt that?

  4. caheidelberger Post author | 2011.09.03

    Rod: sounds like a blast!

    Michael, I'm not blindly assuming anything. I've spent years looking very closely at what Madison does. I'm looking very closely now at what Spearfish does. Spearfish can match your list of nice things about Madison with its own list community events and amenities. And on top of all that, Spearfish does downtown music.

    Tell me what fundamental factors I'm missing that would prevent Friday night Main Street concerts from working. The preventing factors I see: The Madison City Commission and the Lake Area Improvement Corporation.

  5. Bruce C. Boatwright 2011.09.03

    Mr. Black is assuming something like this won't work here, why can't we assume that it just might? Does something like this become a success overnight? Probably not, but we can at least start trying.
    As for all those things "we have", I'm guessing Spearfish has all that and more but they also apparently have at least one thing we don't seem to have here in Madison...vision.
    Bruce
    PS I would also submit nothing in that list actually promotes downtown Madison with the possible exception of Dairy Queen. bcb

  6. Kevin 2011.09.03

    Cory, Rochester MN also does a weekly summer music event, and blocks a downtown street right by the Mayo Clinic campus. If ever there was a place for traffic problems, it's there. Yet, it's always a well attended and appreciated family event.

  7. Michael Black 2011.09.03

    You need a core group of volunteers that really want downtown bands. I have not heard of any group forming to perform such a service.

    We have some very cool new things going on. SoccerMadison is up and running. I had heard of a running group that meets early on Thursday mornings. Masters swim class is starting Monday nights at the Community Center in a couple of weeks.

  8. Ruth 2011.09.03

    Nothing ventured - nothing gained. You can't suppose it won't work. We'll never know if we don't try things. Always excuses why not to try something new. Make something happen in town that the people will enjoy. Not just special occasions - but try something new that would entice people to come-visit-listen and enjoy. I would think several towns do things to draw the community together and Friday nights out sounds great.

  9. Michael Black 2011.09.03

    I'll leave the organizing of this new Madison event to Cory and Rod.

  10. Mark O'Loughlen 2011.09.03

    ^^ With a mindset like that, no wonder Madison is slowly dying away.

  11. caheidelberger Post author | 2011.09.03

    Michael: The Madison Area Arts Council wanted to do exactly what you suggest. The Madison City Commission turned them down. Michael, you're sounding distressingly like Madison's leaders: when someone suggests how we might improve things, Madison gets defensive and tries telling us the way we do things is just fine and that we don't need to change.

    Kevin: Downtown Rochester! Wow!

    Bruce: you see my point exactly. We're talking about downtown development. And we can't piggyback too much on the DQ event, since that's a once-a-year charity event. It's a great event, but for other businesses or groups to try riding the coattails of Miracle Treat Day could be unseemly and cut into where our focus ought to be on that day.

  12. Tony Amert 2011.09.03

    Same thing happens in Rapid every thursday night, except we block off the WHOLE downtown. The even doesn't start until ~6 but things start getting blocked off at 3. It's so popular that to get to the event the city takes its bus fleet to satellite parking lots and buses people to and from downtown.

  13. Justin Johnson 2011.09.03

    I can't believe this was ever turned down. It is a shame people in Madison put up with poor decisions like these.

  14. Bill Fleming 2011.09.03

    Maybe it's because they don't live close to Sturgis? Or maybe they didn't get the "Culture & Arts = Best Eco Devo" memo.

  15. Bill Fleming 2011.09.03

    Think about it...

    Q. Why do 4 million+ people come to SD and spend money every year?

    A. To see a big piece of stone sculpture, ride motorcycles and listen to music.

  16. Darwin 2011.09.03

    Go for it, but keep it away from the bars and alcohol free.

  17. Molly 2011.09.03

    Madison's secret plan to annoy Heidelberger into moving far away finally pays off. Don't anybody tell him, but it's been one big outdoor arts-fest since he left! VICTORY!!

  18. Joseph Nelson 2011.09.03

    I would just like to point out that if Madison did something like this, you would draw people in from Howard, Rutland, Colman, Chester, Winfred, and all the other surrounding small towns (the 20 people in Vilas?) It would be a great event that would draw families like ours (if we still lived there). If you build it, they will come. Plus, I would rather have teenagers going to this, than the alternative activities that they have to resort to (teenagers, chime in)!

  19. Joseph Nelson 2011.09.03

    Also:
    Summer rec program for softball, baseball, T-Ball = Costs Money
    Community Center = Costs Money
    Prairie Village = Costs Money
    Miracle Treat Day = Costs Money
    Lake Herman State Park = Costs Money
    Lake Madison = Free
    Dakota State University = Costs Money
    New swimming pool = Costs Money
    football, volleyball and basketball games at the college and high school level = Costs Money
    church activities = Free

    Spearfish Downtown Fun Times???? = Free

    So, really what Madison has that competes on a price is the Lake and Church. What if you don't like to swim/boat/worship God?

    Granted, will you probably spend money in Spearfish? Yes, but there is no commitment, and you still get to see the art, hear the bands, and have a great time for free.

  20. caheidelberger Post author | 2011.09.04

    Molly, when you consider driving a family out of town a "victory," you show the kind of Madison attitude that will lead to continued decline. Madison needs all hands on deck. Even now, even from the other side of the state, I'm trying to help with ideas and examples. And you respond with small-town narrow-mindedness. Molly, is your attitude the "Unexpected" that you want people to discover in Madison?

    [p.s.: Molly, you used my last name. Now tell us yours.]

  21. Bill Fleming 2011.09.04

    All I can say, Cory, is that if Molly represents the Madison mentality, you made the right call, brother. Welcome home.

  22. caheidelberger Post author | 2011.09.04

    Thanks, Bill! "Molly" is just following her Standard operating procedure, aping the Chamber of Commerce line that everything is fine and that if you say, "Hey, there's something we could improve," you're not welcome.

  23. Ruth 2011.09.04

    I'd be ashamed to use my last name with comments that Molly makes. I don't believe other people would be so rude and say things like that. Madison needs support from every direction and yours is certainly nasty. It's the people that try to speak with thoughtfulness and express concerns and ask questions that will bring Madison forward. You just brought yourself to the level of who gives a darn if it isn't Molly's way======. I like Madison and would help in anyway to take ideas, suggestions, etc. from anyone who wants to improve things. You can put many names in place of Mollys - but she opened herself up with that one. Cory isn't the only one that brought up ideas, etc. Are they on Mollys black list too.

    Signed: Ruth Heidelberger, proud Madison citizen

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