LATINO DANCE FEVER IS GETTING HOT

On a recent Saturday night, Marylou Delgado was dashing across the lobby of Golden Hall downtown. One arm was wrapped around her brawny boyfriend; the other was clutching a bouquet of pretty pink carnations.

The 24-year-old blonde was clearly eager to reach the dance floor, where several hundred Latino couples were already swaying to a sizzling cumbia medley played by Los Plebeyos, a band from Mexico.

Delgado lives in Los Angeles, but she doesn’t mind driving to San Diego every two weeks for the Latino dance concerts that have been a regular attraction at downtown’s Convention and Performing Arts Center since the late 1970s.

“I drive down every time there is a dance,” she said, her eyes glued to the front door. “There are shows like this in Los Angeles, too, but not as often as there are down here.

“And the reason I always have such a good time here is that everything--the music, the bands, the people--is Mexican, like me. We all come down here to enjoy the music--and each other.

“Unlike the shows in Los Angeles, there are never any fights. And everyone just has a really good time.”

Indeed, the dance concerts, held every other Saturday night at either Golden Hall or Plaza Hall, are among the most popular elements of San Diego’s growing Latino arts scene.

And promoter Cruz Frias of Santa Ana says they’re getting more popular all the time.

“I started doing these shows about eight years ago, and since then we’ve been steadily building the quality of entertainment as well as the number of people we attract,” said Frias, who also produces Latino dance concerts in Los Angeles, Anaheim, Riverside, Indio, Bakersfield, San Jose and Fresno.

“We book only bands and singers from Mexico, and we’re getting more big names now than we ever did before: from Vincente Fernandez, the No. 1 singer in all of Mexico, to Ramon Ayala’s norteno group, which is especially big in border towns in both Mexico and the United States.

“And about a year ago, our San Diego dances became so popular that we went from one a month to two and sometimes even three. But still, more people keep showing up.”

Frank Mlyniec, booking and events coordinator with the San Diego Convention and Performing Arts Center, confirmed the growing popularity of the concerts.

“They’ve been an all-around good revenue maker for everyone concerned,” Mlyniec said. “I was just looking back at how we were doing, and this year we were averaging about 2,000 people per dance, whereas in 1980 we were getting maybe 900 to 1,000.

“And that’s in spite of the fact that there are now twice as many Latino dance concerts as there were back then.”

Frias added that most of those who regularly attend his dance concerts live in San Diego County, where the Latino population has nearly doubled in 10 years.

About 5% to 10% come from Tijuana, he said, while a handful of die-hards, like Marylou Delgado drive down from Los Angeles.

“San Diego Hispanics know these concerts are here to stay now, and they’re basically a very good group of people, nicely dressed and causing a lot less trouble than, say, the crowds at heavy metal shows,” Mlyniec added.

Other local concert promoters have also been getting in on the action.

After several years of producing only pop-jazz and soft-rock concerts at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island, Southland Concerts is venturing into the Latino market with a concert Monday at Sports Arena by Mexican superstar Julio Iglesias.

The show is being actively promoted on both sides of the border, said Southland’s Scott Pedersen.

In San Diego, Southland is running commercials on XLTN-FM (Radio Latina, 104.5), the leading Spanish-language radio station, and is also placing advertisements in La Prensa San Diego, El Mexicano and the Form, three local Latino newspapers, Pedersen said.

And in Tijuana, Southland has opened several ticket outlets at travel agencies and nightclubs, Pedersen added, and is chartering buses to transport concertgoers across the border to the show and back.

“Right now, Southland is interested in expanding its presence in the San Diego market,” Pedersen said. “And there’s no way we can overlook this town’s growing Hispanic population.

“In the past, the big Hispanic artists would play in either Los Angeles or Tijuana, and skip San Diego. But now, more than ever before, there’s a need for Hispanic entertainment here, and we plan on meeting that need more and more as time goes on.

“Based on preliminary ticket sales, we fully expect the Julio Iglesias show to sell out. And we think other Hispanic shows will fare equally well, especially if we go out and aggressively pursue people who like Hispanic music on both sides of the border.’

Bill Silva of Fahn and Silva Presents said his firm’s first Latino concert, a 1984 Fox Theater appearance by Mexican singer Jose Jose, was a surprise sell-out.

And the only reason Fahn and Silva haven’t produced any more Latino concerts, Silva said, “is because we don’t yet have the resources to properly research the tastes of the Hispanic concert market--especially when other promoters are giving them more and more shows to choose from all the time.”