Review Forced to Reschedule 22nd Music Awards to Sullivan's Black Forest on June 16th

By Robert E. Martin
Editor & Publisher * Review Magazine






    As many of you may have heard by now, thanks to our friends at WNEM-TV5 and Citadel Communications, I have been placed in the unfortunate and extremely trying situation of having to cancel our 22nd Review Music Awards Ceremony scheduled originally for May 12th at The Empire Club in Bay City and reschedule the event.

The new date & location is set for Monday, June 16th at Sullivan's Black Forest in Frankenmuth.

Since the inception of the awards ceremony 22 years ago, I've always believed in shifting the venue around throughout the tri-cities. Indeed, back in the early '90s, when the Steadmans owned and developed Club Empire, we hosted several ceremonies there with great success - it truly is a beautiful venue for our area, and perfect for an event of this nature.

When I heard that the club had re-opened, I'd kept it in mind as host site for the 2008 awards. Then back in late February and early March of this year, I approached the owner, Roy Stevens, about hosting the ceremony, making it clear in written terms the duties that were expected of the venue in order to assure smooth sailing for an event of this magnitude.

In a nutshell, the contract was signed and we were good to go. However, as the date loomed closer, several things started to raise my concern, the most significant being word I received that another promoter staging several weekend shows at The Empire, and having several booked for the last weekend in April and first few weeks in May, received a call notifying him that he'd have to move his show to Indian Barry's because there was no power at the club.

I tried calling the owner but only got a recorded message stating his message box was full, so finally got hold of the manager, whom informed me that the power was off because the owner wanted to repair the Marquee sign (which you may or may not recall caught fire when the club was re-opened, I believe prior to an Eddie Money show).

This all seemed plausible and I was assured the power would be back on Monday or Tuesday of last week.

Needless to say, I followed the situation closely and left messages with the owner & management each & every day, however none of my calls were returned.

Consequently, Wednesday morning, I left a message stating in no uncertain terms that the lack of communication was extremely unprofessional and, given the magnitude of this event, if I did not hear back from them and have a face-to-face meeting by 5 PM that evening, I would be left in no other position than to pull the event and consider the silence a breach of contract.

No call was forthcoming, so Thursday morning I began making preparations to move the event and perform basic triage - securing a new venue, preparing notices to nominees, coordinating press releases and preparing a fresh marketing campaign.

Much to my amazement I finally did receive a call from the manager on late Thursday afternoon stating that the power had been restored and the venue was good to go. But by then, the call was a day late and more than a dollar short, especially insofar as arrangements were secured with the Black Forest and notices sent to the media about how we were placed in this unfortunate position to cancel and move the event.

I understand that this is a challenging economy and that it's difficult to make large venues like The Empire Club fly. Indeed, many of the venues that hosted the Awards Ceremony in the past are now closed - The OnStage Nightclub, The Saginaw Comedy Club, The PlayPen - to name but a few.

But if the ownership at Club Empire was uncertain of their ability to perform on this event, according to the time-table and terms set forth in our agreement, they should have never agreed to host it, and at a minimum, kept me better informed about their status.

As for now, we move forward.

As you can tell from the display ad, everything about the show remains the same except for the date & location.

Nominees should keep their invitations and use them on June 16th and people already purchasing tickets will have them honored. 

Advance tickets are now on sale at the following locations for $15.00: Review Magazine, Mid Michigan Music in Bay City & Midland, White's Bar in Saginaw and The Coast in Shields; Herter Music and Bemo's in Bay City; Tim Boychuck's State Farm Insurance in Midland, and Olive's Gourmet Deli in Freeland and Sullivan's Black Forest in Frankenmuth. Plus they'll be available at the door for $20.00.