Future includes Branson Landing

BRANSON, Mo. – Here in the lush foothills of the Ozarks it is barely 9 a.m., with temperatures inching toward 100, and already throngs are pushing into Silver Dollar City.

It’s an 1880s-era theme park that launches every day with the Pledge of Allegiance, hosts four packed Sunday Christian services and requires customers to dress in appropriate family attire.

This is the way visitors like it in Branson, where 7 million people a year come for live shows – more seats than Broadway – as well as camping, fishing and all-you-can-eat buffets.

Now, city officials and business leaders are banking it is the right time for this small, homey town to reposition itself to attract a more sophisticated following among the prosperous conservative movement.

Moving beyond its roots as a working-class resort, next year Branson will see a $400 million lakefront complex open with two Hiltons, a large convention center and upscale shops, such as Ann Taylor Loft and Brookstone.

Branson Landing has leased 80 percent of its national retail space and sold $75 million worth of condos.

“Branson will always be a slice of America,” said Ross Summers, president of the local chamber of commerce. “We never intend to alienate our base. … (But) we’re aiming at a new market that might be more upscale – people who have a preconceived notion that Branson is just country shows, traffic, buses and senior travelers.”

Since the early 1900s, when people came by the trainloads to enjoy the town’s 800 miles of lakeshore and leafy mountains, Branson has been a low-cost vacation spot.

In the past two decades, the city has seen exponential growth, becoming famous when a country-music boom brought acts such as Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn to town.

Shows are expected to offer the clean entertainment of another era – no dirty jokes, no sexual innuendoes, no bad language. There is a museum dedicated to war veterans, a “strip” lined with American flags, and Bobby Vinton, a regular live act, crooning on the local radio station.

Veterans arrive by the thousands in November for the annual week-long tribute that coincides with Veterans Day. Tony Orlando puts on his Yellow Ribbon Show, and mothers of service members are honored. Outlet stores offer discounts to active-duty soldiers.

“Branson is a metaphor for red state America,” said Robert Schmuhl, professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame.

“There are those on the coasts that might snicker in their sleeves, but the town represents what many conservative people in the Midwest see as America, the America they want, the America they hold in their heads from yesterday. Maybe it is part mythical – but it’s the America they want to cling to.”

Andy Williams, who arrived in 1991, remains one of the more popular shows in town. Williams said in an interview that he decided to build his Moon River Theatre here because he was “burned out” on traveling and on Las Vegas.

Although Williams, 77, was a friend of Bobby and Ethel Kennedy’s, he said he is a lifelong Republican who grew up in Iowa singing in church choirs and feels right at home in Branson.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that people on the West Coast – L.A. particularly – and the East Coast have no clue at all about what’s happening outside their own little bailiwick. And they think everybody is stupid because they are not sophisticated,” he said.

“People on the East Coast just look down their noses on Branson. But this is America.”

Steve Presley, whose family started the first live show on the “Branson Strip” – Highway 76 – 40 years ago, describes his audience as “very much a blue-collar crowd … probably real close to the Wal-Mart customer. They value the dollar because they work hard and save for vacation. They tend to follow tradition.”

The average Branson visitor has an average household income of $55,000, stays less than four days and spends $217. About 40 percent come from within a 300-mile radius.

Presley said the challenge, as Branson reaches out to a more well-heeled clientele, will be to keep “the personal, hometown feeling that built Branson.”