$40M Southern music museum planned downtown (Atlanta, Cartersville: sales, credit, school)

[JPD]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

I never complained about the Macy's building... merely said things must stay clustered near the convention spaces and hotels.

Edit: One follow up... I still dream the Macy's building could become a retail building again with the location on Peachtree St.

A long shot at this point though....

The first two posts on page 2 clearly state that this location is no good and that it should be next to the other museums. That's what brought me to this thread.

I keep agreeing with you, yet you won't stop with the "yeah, buts."

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by JPD

The first two posts on page 2 clearly state that this location is no good and that it should be next to the other museums. That's what brought me to this thread.

I keep agreeing with you, yet you won't stop with the "yeah, buts."

I'm sorry... I'm not trying to pick on you or anything.

Re-read the post from ATLriseup and your follow up reply. It was left a little vague, but expressed interest in spreading things out throughout the city. He made it seem like things should be spread out more than walking distance... which I disagree with that overall concept. You could build this in Midtown and it won't do well.

In my follow up reply I stressed the walking distance to the hotels, which the location on Peachtree St is fine for.


I think we are on the same page, but we are misreading each other on other vague posts.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

I'm sorry... I'm not trying to pick on you or anything.

Re-read the post from ATLriseup and your follow up reply. It was left a little vague, but expressed interest in spreading things out throughout the city. He made it seem like things should be spread out more than walking distance... which I disagree with that overall concept. You could build this in Midtown and it won't do well.

In my follow up reply I stressed the walking distance to the hotels, which the location on Peachtree St is fine for.


I think we are on the same page, but we are misreading each other on other vague posts.

Actually I could see this working quite well in Midtown, especially if it also included a live music venue to showcase various genres of music that were birthed and/or nurtured in the South, perhaps on weekends regularly and sometimes during the week.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

Actually I could see this working quite well in Midtown, especially if it also included a live music venue to showcase various genres of music that were birthed and/or nurtured in the South, perhaps on weekends regularly and sometimes during the week.

Maybe

I can see the concept you're going for... its a more popular place for locals to go out and an entertainment venue could bring in more people, however for the exhibit space ($40 million worth) I think they would have hard time attracting enough unique visitors. Medium size attraction museum will probably have tickets in the $15-$25 range.

The live music venue could attract repeat visitors, particularly locals, but it would have different added expenses, pricing, and capital costs associated with it. I'm not sure how much that could really go to helping sustaining the operations (and costs and capital expenses) on the museum side unless people are willing to continually spend more money for both.

We also know music venues downtown do well, so even with a live music venue attached to it I'd think the facility could capture revenue and more visitors better downtown.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

Maybe

I can see the concept you're going for... its a more popular place for locals to go out and an entertainment venue could bring in more people, however for the exhibit space ($40 million worth) I think they would have hard time attracting enough unique visitors. Medium size attraction museum will probably have tickets in the $15-$25 range.

The live music venue could attract repeat visitors, particularly locals, but it would have different added expenses, pricing, and capital costs associated with it. I'm not sure how much that could really go to helping sustaining the operations (and costs and capital expenses) on the museum side unless people are willing to continually spend more money for both.

We also know music venues downtown do well, so even with a live music venue attached to it I'd think the facility could capture revenue and more visitors better downtown.

No doubt it would do better downtown, but I also think it could work in Midtown. Location would have a lot to do with it.

[Tyler_Jolie-Pitt]

Shouldn't this be in Nashville? It seems equivalent to putting a Voodoo museum in Cleveland rather than in New Orleans...

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by Tyler_Jolie-Pitt

Shouldn't this be in Nashville? It seems equivalent to putting a Voodoo museum in Cleveland rather than in New Orleans...

A couple of cities could be an appropriate home for this type of museum; besides Nashville, there's NOLA and Memphis. However, Atlanta is an appropriate site as well. It was actually one of the epicenters of country music before the industry took root in Nashville. And in addition to the modern urban genres that have a heavy presence here, Georgia as a whole has produced many influential musical artists that have been trailblazers in their fields, such as Gladys Knight, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, James Brown, the Allman Brothers, Thomas Dorsey, etc. Combine Georgia's musical legacy with Atlanta's status as a huge Southern tourist hub, and you have all the justification you need for this museum's location in Atlanta.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by Tyler_Jolie-Pitt

Shouldn't this be in Nashville? It seems equivalent to putting a Voodoo museum in Cleveland rather than in New Orleans...

I understand your reasoning, but this would likely not do as well in Nashville.

For the same reasons the College Hall of Fame moved here.

The same reason the NASCAR hall of fame didn't do well in Charlotte (that's as close to the middle of NASCAR country as you're going to get).


What these novelty/specialty museums need is a massive flow of unique new people with too much time on their hands. (The same reason the out-dated theater industry still thrives on Broadway)

Nashville has a great local music culture and it even brings in moderate amounts of tourism, but the amount of turnover of unique new individuals in the city is lower comparatively and can support only a limited amount of museums. They already have the rather large Country Music Hall of Fame and would likely face uphill battle to keep attendance high at both places and that is dedicated solely to what Nashville is known best for.

Now....
This is where cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas thrive. They are inland hubs. They have large convention centers and huge merchandise/tradeshow spaces that bring in tons of 'tourists' that are there for business or pleasure but attending a separate event. I know Atlanta and Dallas, especially, are not known as tourist destinations where people go out of their way to take family trips to do sight seeing....but they bring in huge amounts of 'tourists' through other means. They can thrive with many offerings, because the turnover of unique visitors is rather high. We keep building museums and attendance is often higher than projections.

Orlando and Las Vegas, of course, are the other two major draws for conventions. These cities have all the same qualities. The only caveat is its hard to compete with the large amounts of existing entertainment. These cities used investments in entertainment to draw in conventions. The previous cities have huge amounts of conventions/tradeshows and can use them to draw in entertainment.

Lastly... we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking southern music is only Nashville-Country music.

There are thriving music scenes all over the south from Keywest and the Gulf coast to Athens to Nashville to New Orleans to Atlanta's hip hop and R&B scene. We need to play tribute to all of them

The South played a roll in country, alternative, jazz, blues, classic rock, R&B, hip hop, and rap to various degrees.

[cwkimbro]

I wonder if part of this new museum could house the Georgia Museum Hall of Fame collection since the state closed it in 2011.

It is a prebuilt collection, archive, and has a full list of inductees. It could easily play a part of a larger collection.

[berkeleylake]

I think Downtown Atlanta should get another museum to booster more tourism, and I do tend to side with y'all about putting it near the other museums.