Can’t Squeeze Dollars Out Of Nickel

A struggling summer series in Silverton, Ore., could be facing its final curtain call if the last of the season’s offerings can’t pull in larger crowds.

The Wooden Nickel Summer Concert Series at the Oregon Garden, now in its third year, isn’t proving successful enough to offset the run’s production and marketing costs, promoter Glen Damewood told the Silverton Appeal.

Ticket sales in the area have reportedly been down, and while this summer’s concerts included performances by Diamond Rio, Poison and George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, among others, the show sales didn’t buck the trend.

Damewood told the Appeal that organizers had tried to book acts that would attract a wide variety of people, but "it’s one of those things where it’s not getting the support and I don’t know why."

And after spending more than $40,000 on marketing at the beginning of the series, along with amphitheatre rental fees, booking and production costs, he said if the last shows proved profitable, "it might be enough to salvage it and keep it going."

The last concert in the series at the Garden’s 3,000-capacity Teufel Amphitheatre is an August 16th Ted Nugent show.

Damewood told the paper he hasn’t made a final decision about the concert series but that he’d like to keep it alive if he can find a way to make it financially feasible.

"I think the community enjoys having this as an option for something to do," he said. "But I honestly don’t know what will happen next."