This Should Be a Real Blockbuster

If radio stations like KROQ can get top-line acts to play special Christmas concerts for several thousand fans, what could the nation’s largest music and video retail chain do?

How about the biggest U.S. rock concert since Woodstock ‘94?

That’s what the folks at Blockbuster Entertainment have in mind for a June 21 concert at the Texas International Raceway, celebrating the company’s relocation of its headquarters to Dallas from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Already lined up are some of the top names of the current rock scene: Bush, No Doubt, Counting Crows, Jewel, the Wallflowers and Collective Soul. The roster was assembled by Los Angeles-based promoter Brian Murphy, president of Avalon Attractions.

The company is shooting for an attendance of 300,000, with tickets to be given away free beginning Saturday with purchases at the stores and through on-air promotions at rock radio stations around the country. At a later date, free tickets will also be distributed through an arrangement with Ticketmaster.

Call it Blockstock.

“I’m sure [Blockbuster] is counting on the kind of press a Woodstock gets, media exposure you can’t buy,” says Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of the concert trade magazine Pollstar.

And for the artists, it will bring the kind of exposure that normally you can only buy--three months of promotional tie-ins and prominent in-store displays from the largest music retailer in the nation, with 4,200 outlets. A campaign with a chain like this would normally cost a record company as much as $100,000.

And where those radio station shows are for charity, with performers usually donating their time, Blockbuster is paying the top artists substantial fees.

“The bands are being well-compensated as well as getting massive exposure,” says Rob Kahane, co-owner of Trauma Records, the home of Bush and No Doubt. “I don’t see any down side.”

So can we also call it the start of a trend? Other music retailers and rock artists would certainly love that same kind of exposure.

“If it’s something other retailers plan on putting together on such a scale and this well organized, and with this big a push behind it, of course we’d want our bands involved,” says Kahane.

That could be tricky, given Blockbuster’s market muscle.

“It’s going to be an expensive promotion,” Bongiovanni says. “Microsoft has the money to do it, and if [a mass market retailer like] Best Buy or someone wanted to, they could--but that would be a lot of money for them.”

But Jonathan Baskin, Blockbuster senior vice president of corporate relations, says the event, officially named RockFest, will more than pay for itself in the long run.

“Not only will we have customers able to come into stores for entertainment purchases, but also for tickets to this once-in-a-life-time event,” he says. “Events such as RockFest and the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards [airing March 11 on the UPN network] are strong opportunities to grow our brand name.”