Lubbock Festival 1999

Total attendance surprised even those producing the outdoor concert on Sept. 4 in the Depot District, the showpiece of the first annual Music Crossroads of Texas Festival. The music was hot, the crowd large and responsive, the weather taunting but cooperative.

Food vendors running out of food. Talk about underestimating the number of people desiring an evening of '50s rock 'n' roll performed by The Coasters, The Big Bopper Jr., Charlie Thomas, Chris Montez, Freddy ''Boom Boom'' Cannon, Virgil Johnson and Rockin Robin.

According to Linda Fort, director of the Lubbock Convention & Visitors Bureau, fans dropping by a visitor's booth stuck pins in a world map, indicating representation from 28 countries and 31 states.

On the other hand, Fort also mentioned that she had been told that available hotel rooms were non-existent that weekend and many visitors waited more than an hour for cabs to transport them from hotels to the Depot District.

If so, the city emerged a winner.

Maria Holly no longer involved.

Considering the legal squabbles that preceded the festival, it's no wonder that the Convention & Visitors Bureau staff celebrated. Indeed, with the possible exception of visiting entertainer Carl Edward Gardner Jr. (The Coasters), who was arrested on Sept. 5, the only ones sharing a sad countenance probably are Maria Elena Holly, the late Buddy Holly's widow, and fans hoping that Holly's name would again be used as a festival foundation.

That's not going to happen, said Fort.

You'll recall that Maria Elena Holly turned down the City of Lubbock's offer of $50,000 and 15 percent of vendor sales in return for the right to call this event the Buddy Holly Music Festival.

A new festival was devised with a new name, taking place in the same time frame on a weekend near Holly's Sept. 7 birthday. And without using Holly's name, attendance increased by an estimated 300 percent.

Thus, explained Fort, there are no plans to renew negotiations with Holly's widow in the future. The original, unwieldy 10-word name of the new festival created ''during the legal confusion of what to call it,'' said Fort will be reduced to simply Crossroads Music Festival in 2000.

The Convention & Tourism Bureau already has contracted with the same promoter, Michael Franklin Productions in Orlando, Fla., to provide a group of '50s era rock 'n' rollers for next year's festival. It won't be the same show, but one or two of the acts may return. Crowd favorites were Charlie Thomas (of The Drifters) and Freddy ''Boom Boom'' Cannon.

The Lubbock Police Department indicated that 6,000 people attended the Sept. 4 concert and 10,000 attended the four-day festival as a whole. Even taking into consideration that clubs in the Depot District always do fantastic business on the weekend after Labor Day, that many were lured by other events, the fact remains that thousands enjoyed the festival.

So changes next year will be minimal, if crucial. Look for better crowd control via designated walkways and the use of bleachers. Portable toilets will be moved to a more visible area. The children's area will be expanded. Use of a portable dance floor is a possibility.

The crowd was packed so tightly between 17th Street and 18th Street on Buddy Holly Avenue that ice could not be transported via golf carts to vendors. Instead, city personnel wound up trying to make their way through the masses while carrying bags of ice.

True, there were complaints. A couple of visitors from England said they were not even aware of the previous night's Crickets concert until they arrived in Lubbock, and by then it was sold out.

Fort said, ''Basically there were events sponsored by three entities that weekend: The CVB, Buddy Holly Center and Cactus Theater. But the situation was that, for this year only, we had to market ourselves independently in the event that a lawsuit or an injunction was filed against any of us by Maria Holly. So no event could be piggybacked on another.

''It was frustrating, but we won't have to deal with legal issues next year.''

Interesting note that Linda Fort was fired the following week!?