Lessons Learned: Marcie Allen Cardwell

Pollstar continues its series of real life lessons in the business.

I was promoting On The Bricks, the free music festival in Atlanta at Centennial Olympic Park in 2002. The first year, my partner was 99X, the alternative station in Atlanta.

The next year, they decided to partner up with Clear Channel Entertainment, and start a competing concert right across from mine.

Michelle Branch was our headliner. Theirs was Default. One street divided the two stages. The sound bleed from Clear Channel’s mainstage was so bad that Michelle Branch stopped and said to the crowd, “At this point, we should just go ahead and join them” and she started playing along with Default’s hit, “Wasting My Time.”

It was one of those little moments in my career where you realize that if you go head-to-head with somebody, they’ll put up a festival 60 feet away from you.

It was probably one of my important lessons, but I also learned to never give up, to never back down and in 2004, the last year I had the festival, it was the only one in Atlanta.