Gallagher’s The Only One Laughing Now
How big of a flop was Gallagher at the Spokane Interstate Fair on Sept. 6?
Here are the numbers: Out of 6,000 tickets available, only 1,052 were sold.
The county would have had to sell at least twice as many tickets just to break even. They lost $19,235 on the show. Gallagher’s fee alone was $35,000.
They ended up giving away 1,276 tickets just to get some rear-ends into the seats.
Fair manager Paul Gillingham tried to put the best spin on it by saying that the extra attention from the Gallagher appearance caused more people than usual to come to the fair that night, even if they didn’t buy Gallagher tickets.
Fran Boxer, the county’s assistant chief administrative officer, isn’t buying that.
“Facts are facts,” said Boxer, who is Gillingham’s boss. “If we picked the wrong act, we picked the wrong act.”
She said that Ed Dougherty of Concert Services, hired by the county to book the entertainment, assured everyone that Gallagher would not only break even, but make a big profit.
“We were expecting at least a $35,000 profit,” said Boxer. “We thought they would go like hotcakes. That’s why we had it at the ballpark (SeaFirst Stadium), because we were expecting big crowds.”
All of the rest of the acts, including Tracy Lawrence and Weird Al Yankovic, were free with the price of the $7 fair admission. Gallagher’s tickets were $15.
“If we made a mistake, it was in charging $15 a ticket,” said Gillingham.
No, actually, if they made a mistake it was in booking a no-talent has-been who alienates as many fans as he attracts. His sledgehammer-comedy act lost its novelty years ago.
By the way, every other show at the fair was “packed to the rafters,” said Gillingham.
The Clear-Corker show
Richard Clear’s conservative talk show on KGA-AM (1510) certainly sounds different lately. He has acquired a permanent, liberal co-host, Steve Corker, and now they are billing the talk as “right-to-left.”
Corker, a former county Democratic Party chairman, was already co-hosting on Fridays. He said the station noticed that the show’s ratings were higher on Fridays, so they hired Corker as the full-time co-host.
The call-in comments were not exactly supportive when Corker started full-time on Sept. 6. But the callers are now coming around, he said.
“The calls now are a little less vitriolic and hostile,” said Corker. “They started that way, but now people say it’s good to have some thoughtful argument.”
Corker owns an advertising and public relations firm in Spokane, and he also teaches advertising and marketing at Gonzaga University. He was most recently in the public eye as the most vocal opponent of the Pacific Science Center in Riverfront Park.
The All-R.E.M. station
KAEP-FM (105.7, “The Peak”) had its listeners all agitated by announcing an impending “format change” to take place at 5 p.m. last Monday.
Was it going country? Classical? All-polka? No, it turns out it was going all-R.E.M. The station even had all-R.E.M. jingles and IDs made up. However, this all-R.E.M. format lasted only three hours, until the station had played the new R.E.M. album and selected oldies. Then the station reverted back to its old adult alternative format.
The Peak fans I talked to were torn between relief that the format hadn’t actually changed and fury that they had been the victims of a lame stunt.
ACT no more
It looks like the ACT Theatre in the Valley is history.
A group of theater lovers called “Fourth Wall” was unsuccessful in its attempt to resuscitate the theater. They were simply unable to raise enough money and recruit enough volunteers.
Meanwhile, the show that was scheduled as the season opener, “Tom and Jerry,” a one-act comedy by Rick Cleveland about two hit men, has been moved to the Spokane Falls Community College Playhouse for two shows Sept. 20 and 21 at 8 p.m. The show is free with a suggested donation. It features Patrick Treadway, Patrick Heald and Ron Varela. Those three actors had originally offered the show to the ACT.
The Red Army invades
All of you fans of traditional Russian dance and music should take note of the Red Star Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble, booked into the Opera House for Oct. 13.
This group was a hit here in 1992. Tickets are now on sale through G&B Select-a-Seat.
My only question: Isn’t the Red Army down the tubes? How can there still be a Red Army Chorus?
No doubt Col. Anatoly Bazhalkin, the conductor, can set us straight on that question when the group comes to town.
Cheers for Tomlinson
Betty Tomlinson, the former executive producer of Spokane Civic Theatre, was given the Art Cole Award by the American Association of Community Theatre recently in New York.
The award was for “a lifetime of leadership in community theater,” and it couldn’t have gone to anybody more deserving.
Only eight other Art Cole Awards have ever been given.
, DataTimes MEMO: To leave a message on Jim Kershner’s voice-mail, call 459-5493. Or send e-mail to jimk@spokesman.com, or regular mail to Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210.