I can't say that I've completely decompressed from the conference. Someone said it was like a high school reunion, but I thought it was more akin to summer camp. I don't want to see everybody at a reunion, but at Aspen Live? Count me in. It's so weird being connected after being isolated. You get caught up in the drift, the group becomes the focus and everything else recedes. Being in constant contact strengthens relationships, and that's what it's all about at Aspen Live, who you meet, who you hang with, they end up being your closest contacts in the business.
And this year attendance was up, but even better was the panels.
I remember the old days, debating file-trading, arguing about this and that. But this time the panels were informative, far different from the depressed speeches you get at the normal conference. You know, where they get six talking heads of varying status and they reluctantly say almost nothing. And then they go back into their silo and it's like they were never there. In Aspen, we're all together all the time, and you get to know someone best on the lift, not that everybody was a skier.
So BottleRock... You might remember when it cratered, about a decade back, leaving debt and a bad taste in everybody's mouth. Well, these three guys from outside, newbies who knew nothing, paid all the past debts and proceeded to lose five and a half million the first year out. They just didn't understand the music business, which looks easy but is ultimately complicated. And then they pivoted.
BottleRock is now a high end enterprise. A festival for adults. Capacity is limited by the venue, so...
There's VIP. FOR $6000! Talk about extreme, on first glance it appeared to be a colossal rip-off. But then we heard you got to hang backstage, meet the talent, stand right up front during the show...
And that still wasn't enough to close me.
But the piece-de-resistance is the food and wine. Yes, in Napa they get the foremost wineries to appear, with an explanation of the vintages, expertise and then consumption. And if you're not into wine, they have Pappy Van Winkle, which is as rare and expensive as a home concert by Ed Sheeran. Well, I don't think Ed Sheeran does house concerts, but you get the idea. You're up close and personal with the best wine and the best chefs and they serve oysters backstage and by time the three dudes were done talking, we all wanted to go. That was the buzz that night and the day thereafter, people would come up to you and start talking about BottleRock, their desire to attend.
And then there was Dayna Frank, proprietor of the legendary First Avenue, you know, the club in Minneapolis where Prince recorded songs for "Purple Rain."
Well, Dayna was the driving force behind Save Our Stages and now Fix The Tix, you read about the Senate bill they got introduced last week, the Fans First Act.
A lot of people talk, but Dayna does. With a sense of humor. You could sense the power inside her without feeling bludgeoned, but entranced.
And then there was the story of her attending the brokers' convention in Nashville under an assumed name. You've got no idea the tools the secondary market has at their disposal.
And when it comes to ticketing... I heard a lot of inside information from the source, one on one, but you weren't there and I can't repeat it. The code of the road, the music business is a club and if you're not in it, you don't know. And most of what's worth knowing never hits the news. But you could get so much in conversation in Aspen.
And I must tell you, after more than ten inches of snow Friday day and night, Saturday, although sporting cold temperatures, served up skiing conditions as good as they get. Period. The packed powder of your dreams. And then...
There was the crud, which is snow that is not powder, that has been skied, that is chopped-up yet not packed down. And we skied the crud bumps on the Face of Bell...
For one of the smallest major ski areas, Ajax, the main mountain in Aspen, has a wealth of very serious terrain. It's an experts' paradise. And stunningly, everything except the bottom, which is uber-steep, was open. If you came from the east coast your head would have exploded.
Then again, Aspen is not as together as Vail. They've still got slow lifts, when every lift at Vail is high speed, they've even replaced high speed fours for sixpacks.
And there was a line for the gondola, to get up the hill. And the gondola holds eight, but they were letting up cars with three or four, unless six people were in a group, no car had more than five. And this is just heinous. At Vail, when there is a line, when it's crowded, they force ten people into every gondola car, it's almost like the subway, pay attention, it's very efficient, to your benefit.
However, today at Vail was a disappointment compared to Aspen. Because Vail is all about the Back Bowls, a feature no other ski area in the U.S. provides. What they have in Jackson and Sun Valley are nice, but they don't compare. In Vail, the ridgeline of the Bowls is six miles long, if you're unfamiliar, check out the seven bowls here: tinyurl.com/mf46z59d The Back Bowls contain 2,785 acres, and Ajax/Aspen Mountain only has 673 total! But the Bowls face south, and that means they're in the sun and need more snow to open, and if the Back Bowls are not open you can't get to the treed wonderland of Blue Sky Basin with its own 525 acres, which faces north, but needs access from the south-facing Back Bowls. So today we were limited to the front, and not all of it was open. And if we don't get more snow before Xmas, it's going to be a clusterf*ck.
But I had that great day in Aspen. But now I'm back to reading the news, I'm not in a hot house of constant contact and input.
I miss it.
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