RTP-area local music and culture

[Nathaniel Florin <npflorin AT yahoo.com>]

My impression with the MA smoking ban was that it did
hurt bars a lot. At least they all said it did, and I
never seemed to see as many people out after it as I
did before it, especially on weekdays, and a higher
than usual number of places went belly-up afterwards.
Though this didn't seem to apply to places that were
primarily rock clubs, because people go there for a
very different reason. It seemed to help bands,
because one strategy to deal with the loss of the
go-out-to-smoke crowd was a little boom in the number
of places that had a show or two every week when they
had had none before.

After the smoking ban I stopped having constant
respiratory ailments. It was amazing.

Off-topic: another Boston (and elsewhere) thing that I
really liked was the idea of residencies, in which a
band would play someplace one day a week for a month.
Really the best way to see a band, and a good way to
make them grow, not being able to play the same stuff
the same way over and over. It's also great for the
audience, in that you can watch casually in a way you
don't when you're just Going To The Show. And it
allows for a lot more band-audience back and forth. I
saw that the Cave has done this some, but I didn't see
any comment on it. Anyway, it's old fashioned and
civilized and pretty neat.

Nate

--- Bo Williams <bowilliams AT gmail.com> wrote:

> FWIW, clubowners in Boston bitched about the
> non-smoking regulations along
> similar lines. There was a perceived initial drop in
> bar revenue (and even
> that is disputed), but the people I've talked to-
> yes, this is totally
> anecdotal and thus mostly worthless, but still...
> say that attendance at
> shows is back up and maybe even higher a few years
> down the road. The long
> term benefits so outweigh the fearmongering.