Did we have to lay off our tour researchers, those brave men and women who confront concert industry professionals daily in order to present tour info, like the latest routing for Embrace or the updates for Tears For Fears and Better Than Ezra? Did we cut back on expenses? Did we institute salary caps, vacation caps or Guinness caps?

In a perfect world we would say that the recent recession didn’t affect us one bit, and that we breezed through the past few months, posting dates for Grand Funk Railroad, Spyro Gyra and George Thorogood & The Destroyers, with hardly a thought about rising unemployment, the increasing cost of doing business or the swelling cost of the grain-based distilled spirits needed to fuel the largest, third-party concert database known to man since 1849. We would like to say that it was “Situation Normal – All Fine and Upbeat” at the Pollstar.com compound, and that we didn’t have to adjust our operating procedures to accommodate a downturn in the economy. That is what we would have said if we lived in a perfect world.

But despite our best attempts, the world isn’t perfect. For if it were a perfect world, Ratdog would not have cancelled their tour, and our local sports arena would have comped us to front row seats for Bob Dylan. In short, we had to adjust our business plans like all the other mega-corporations. We had to cut back on expenses while increasing productivity, we had to lower one bar while raising another, and we had to switch from single malt to blended. It wasn’t easy, but recessions never are.

So we economized. For starters, we cut back the cleaning service for our Olympic-size swimming pool to every other week, and made up for it by throwing in a few more gallons of chlorine. Sure, it made for some itchy eyes, inflamed skin and unexpected regurgitating, but it was well worth it in order to bring you fresh dates, like the schedules for Unwritten Law and E-Town Concrete, each and every day.

Of course, there were other cutbacks. Clothing allowances were reduced, as were cubical decorating allowances, sushi allowances and Viagra allowances. The wines in the Pollstar.com cafeteria are now domestic instead of imported, and we now use the corporate jet only when it’s absolutely, positively necessary. Like tonight when we wing on down to Los Angeles to see G. Love & Special Sauce. Sure we could drive down there, but who wants to deal with all that traffic for four hours?

But we’ll persevere. Despite all the drastic cutbacks in operating expenses, we’ll continue to bring you the concert data you crave. Whether it’s Maria Muldaur, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey or Bob Schneider, we’ll still post all the dates, regardless of how many prime rib lunches, caviar coffee breaks and lobster dinners we have to eliminate in order to keep this Web site running. Heck, we’re even going to stop whining about how the local sports arena refused to comp us to front row seats for Dylan. After all, times are tough all over, and… and…

… And those second row seats the sports arena gave us will just have to do. Sigh… Biting the bullet is never easy.