Annual taxpayer-supported Blues Festival draws thousands to downtown Niagara Falls
By Mark Scheer Niagara Gazette The Niagara Gazette Sat Nov 26, 2011, 11:27 PM EST
NIAGARA FALLS — Not everyone is convinced a 37-day holiday market will work in downtown Niagara Falls.
Of course, some of those same people were leery a few years ago when a group of local blues enthusiasts first pushed the idea of holding a festival dedicated to their favorite style of music in one of the most recognizable cities in America.
Five years later, organizers of the now-annual Niagara Falls Blues Festival are proud to say they’ve not only persevered, they’ve succeeded.
Previous Falls blues fests have drawn visitors from as far away as Australia and Alaska. Groups from Florida and California are now regular attendees. Last year’s show drew an estimated 10,000 people to Old Falls Street the weekend after Labor Day, a time traditionally considered the start of the slower season for local hotels, restaurants and tourism venues.
Sherry Kushner, a member of Niagara Festival & Entertainment Group, the nonprofit organization that organizes the annual blues fest, said the hardest part was getting started.
Now that the event has established its roots, she believes it can only grow from here.
“There’s a lot of interest in this,” Kushner said. “People who go to blues festivals go to blues festivals. It’s not just one event. It’s a circuit. We are now part of the circuit. That’s really what we wanted to get established.”
The true heart and soul of the Falls’ blues festival push has been Toby Rotella, the former owner of the old Imperial Garage on Third Street. In the 1980s, the nightclub became known as “the” place to go for blues music in Western New York, attracting the likes of Willie Dixon, Stevie Ray Vaughn, B.B. King and John Lee Hooker. The Imperial is long gone, but Rotella and his friends are now using the festival to keep the city’s blues spirit alive.
Kushner said Rotella’s strong connections to the blues scene have helped him draw marquee talent to the Falls. She also believes the success of earlier shows and the experience the performers themselves have had during their stay has helped.
“Word of mouth from other entertainers who have already been here is a great asset,” she said.
The city’s blues festival started from humble beginnings. The first event — one-day affair held back in 2008 — drew between 2,000 and 2,500 people. The following year, organizers added a second day of music and managed to bring in between 7,000 and 10,000 visitors during a rainy, two-day run on Third Street. The 2010 festival moved downtown and was marked by a unique music experience as blues pianist Pinetop Perkins, the late Willie Big Eye Smith, Bob Margolin, Matt “Guitar” Murphy and other greats gathered together on the Old Falls Street stage for a once-in-a-lifetime “Legends of Chicago” jam.
“It was the only time this group were on stage together anywhere in the U.S.,” Kushner said.
This year’s festival expanded to include a third day and included performances by British blues guitarist Matt Schofield, England’s Savoy Brown Blues Band and Coco Montoya, a former member of John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. Concert-goers helped book 350 local hotel rooms the week of the festival, which ran from Sept. 9 to Sept. 11. Kushner suggested the festival helped the economy in other ways, creating business for food vendors, restaurants, retail outlets and suppliers, including local companies that produced T-shirts and other promotional materials.
“It’s another thing that draws people to the city,” Kushner said. “People who come here spend money and they stay in local establishments.”
John Percy, president and CEO of the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp., agreed, saying he believes events like the Blues Festival and Holiday Market, if successful, can only serve to grow the marketplace, making it easier for his organization to sell people on the idea of visiting Niagara Falls and Niagara County.
“We want people to do events like the Blues Festival because we can get behind it and promote it,” Percy said. “You’ve already seen the growth of the Blues Festival. They’ve been able to add more elements to it and better acts to the playbill each year and that’s exciting.”
The blues festival has been supported by both public and private sponsors each year. This year, the city provided $30,000 in casino funds for the project. Kushner said the support has allowed her group to continue to offer blues festival shows free of charge. She said organizers would like to add more private sponsors as they move forward and remain committed to running the shows at no cost to concert-goers.
“We want to keep it free to the public and free to the people of Niagara Falls to enjoy,” she said.
In 2012, Kushner said Niagara Festival & Entertainment Group will be looking to celebrate the blues festival’s fifth anniversary by booking performers to help celebrate the evolution of blues music itself. Kushner said original Blues Brother Dan Akroyd has expressed an interest in participating in next year’s event and she’s hopeful the two parties will be able to come to formal terms.
“Many people have told us they now plan their vacations to include a stop here for our Festival,” Kushner said. “It’s become a blues fan destination event. We hope to keep it going and make it bigger and better every year.”
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