50 years ago in Expo history: John Denver was easily the fair’s most popular artist, with shows selling out too quick for print ads to matter
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The John Denver shows at the Coliseum and easily been the most popular events at Expo ’74 – perhaps too popular.
Since then, a number of complaints had rolled in about the impossibility of getting tickets.
Mike Kobluk, director of Expo entertainment, explained what happened. At the time, most ticket requests came via mail order. The John Denver events sold out so quickly – two-and-a-half days for the first show, and three days for the second – that ads for the show were still running.
People who sent in ticket orders at that point were already out of luck.
“If a mail order was even as much as a day later, the request would obviously be impossible to fill,” Kobluk said.
The producers added 294 seats and extended the stage so more people could view the concert, but many were shut out anyway.
In other Expo news, the Spokane Fire Department received an unusual call. They were asked to come to Expo’s Theme Stream (the creek that cascaded through the fairgrounds) to retrieve an Expo visitor’s false teeth.
No word on how the choppers ended up in the stream, or whether the rescue attempt was successful.
From 100 years ago: The Spokane Daily Chronicle headline said, “Spokane’s Population Now 125,064.”
However, this was probably overly optimistic. The 1924 numbers were not based on official census tallies, but on an estimate by a Spokane Chamber of Commerce subcommittee.
The official 1920 census had shown only 104,437 people in Spokane. Even though Spokane had just gained about 4,000 people overnight, when Hillyard was annexed, the subcommittee’s estimate was probably inflated.
The official 1930 census would show only 115,514 in Spokane – making it unlikely that Spokane truly had 125,064 people in 1924.