SYRACUSE -- There are supposed to be three more "Wednesdays on the Water" concerts at the Inner Harbor, but media sponsor 95X (WAQX) says the concert series promoter, NCS Events, has decided to pull the plug on the series.
Tom Mitchell, operations manager at 95X owner Citadel Broadcasting, immediately handled damage control, making it clear Citadel was not behind the decision.
In a written statemement to CNYRadio.com and other local media, Mitchell said, "while we are disappointed with the NCS decision, we appreciate the support of our sponsorship partners, and the attendance by the many thousands of Central New Yorkers who enjoyed the free concerts on the past five Wednesdays at Syracuse's Inner Harbor."
Mitchell says Lou Gramm, who enjoyed success with the band Foreigner, as well as a solo artist, was scheduled to appear this Wednesday. Dokken was due to appear August 4 and The Outlaws were expected to perform on August 11.
Every week, personalities from 95X were on hand to introduce the acts, as seen in a recent CNYRadio.com Picture of the Week.
WXTL (also Citadel-owned) was still playing the commercials Monday afternoon. Figures the one show I want to see most was The Outlaws, cancelled last year because of rain, cancelled this year for no apparent reason whatsoever. I was only at two of the shows, Blackfoot and Eddie Money; the crowd for Blackfoot was kind of small, but they're a niche band; Eddie Money drew about as many people as the shows did last year.
I'd love to learn just how the deal works, I would have thought the sponsorship and the vendor spot sales paid the costs of putting on the shows so it really doesn't matter if people come or not - otherwise why would you have a free show in the first place? People or not, they had plenty of vendors for the food and some other things.
Note to local folks, don't use NCS Events as a promoter in the future.
Just wanted to add, too, the WOTW site is down entirely and 95X has removed all reference to it from their site - you'd think someone would have the class enough to at least post that "we're sorry, but the remaining shows have been cancelled" but I guess not. I wonder how many people will turn up tomorrow for a show? I wouldn't know they'd been cancelled if I hadn't looked here. That's why I say no class.