Group Schedules and Big Dates
Late last week, David Bruce Murray made a fascinating post at the Musicscribe blog about group schedules and the ratio of big venue concerts to smaller venue concerts. I had a post percolating in my mind that I was going to post today, but I notice that Doug at the Averyfineline blog posted almost my exact thoughts.
I don’t have anything else in mind, so I’ll post my thoughts anyhow.
Basically, what Murray did was to take the list of venues on various groups’ schedules and see what percentage of those dates were at big venues, as well as how many dates a group had to work to make ends meet.
He observed that the big secular acts were able to be successful with a limited number of dates that were only scheduled at big venues. He observed that the only act in Southern Gospel that could do the same was the Gaither Vocal Band, although Ernie Haase & Signature Sound came fairly close.
My question is this: I wonder how the touring schedules of Southern Gospel’s biggest acts of the past would have compared–say, the Cathedrals in 1997 (the final year they did regular touring, before their big Farewell Tour), the Kingsmen in 1982, the Happy Goodmans in 1970, Gold City in 1989 and 2001, the Blackwood Brothers in 1951 and 1963, and the Statesmen in 1956 and 1963.
I suspect that this comparison would reveal that Signature Sound is actually closer than the Gaither Vocal Band to having the touring schedule of a typical Southern Gospel mega-group: 75% of dates in big venues, but some smaller concert dates as well.
