30 ~ Sunday, February 24, 1991 ~ Noith Shore News

MUSIC ’91 president Robin Lecky is on sabbatical to

HIGH PROFILES
Lecky on sabbatical to head Music 791

News photo Neil Lucente

co-ordinate the government's tourism initiative.

CAPILANO
COLLEGE

Business
Management Programs

Intormation Meeting
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 7 p.m. H. Building, Room 501

Time is running out! Our two-year full-time
Business Management Diploma Programs start
this September. Start your .areer planning now.
Attend the information meeting to find out
more about how you can become job ready for
tomorrow’s marketplace.

Our programs include:

* Accounting/Financial Management
« Administrative Management

© Marketing Management

© Business Computing Co-op

© International Business (8 months)
* Merchandising Management

Information will also be available on our
accelerated 10-month Diploma Programs
applicable to several of the above areas of
study, starting in July 1991.

Applications for enrolment in these programs
are now being accepted.

Call Business Management at 984-4960 and
let us know that you are coming.

2055 Purcell Way * North Vancouver ¢ B.C.

NAME: Robin D. Lecky

AGE: 48

BORN: Toronto

EDUCATION: BA from UBC
OCCUPATION: President, Music
91

RESIDENCE: Bowen Island
FAMILY: Married to Barbara;
four children

HOBBIES: Reading, listening to
music, travelling

NON-PROFIT groups. in
B.C. can’t depend on gov-
ernment support for sur-
vival in tough economic
times made worse by the
GST. Those that are helping
to bolster the tourism in-
dustry, on the other hand,
seem to be getting more
than their fair share.

By Evelyn Jacob
News Reporter

The latest alms from the pro-
vincial government is $12 millicn
worth of Lottery fund dollars us-
ed to produce Music '9}, a pro-
vince-wide, community-based
Social Credit tourism marketing
initiative that is being touted as
“the greatest extravaganza since
Expo 86.”"

The mega-festival will include
hundreds of community events
and feature headline talent and
street entertainment performances
in 120 B.C. communities from
May to October.

At the centre of all this festival
fever is Music ’9! president,
Robin Lecky, a Bowen Island res-
ident and former Vancouver
Courier newspaper publisher.

Lecky, 48, is on sabbatical from
his mixed-media production com-
pany, Creative House, to head up
Music 91.

Four days from now he and the
B.C. Year of Music Society will
announce part of Music ’91’s per-
formance lineup (the rest will be
anncunced during the first week
of April), which so far has been a

carefully guarded secret.

Organizers are hoping to tan-
talize B.C. residents (and
ultimately U.S. visitors) with a list
of big-name Canadian and inter-
national entertainers.

Bracing for an anticipated on-
slaught of calls, operators will be
poised at a special 1-800 number
with 400,000 Music °91 tickets to
sell.

But it’s not as if government
has suddenly developed a soft spot
for the arts. The whole idea of the
mega-event is to give B.C.’s
number two industry a_ boost.
After all, economists have
predicted that the GST will hit
tourism hard.

But can a mega-music festival
rescue the industry from such a
slump? Even Lecky admits the
idea is a risk for government.

“Our mandate is to get you and
your family to travel to, for ex-
ample, Williams Lake to see
someone you wouldn't believe
would be in Williams Lake. That
will be our experiment -— to see if
we can take something jike music,
bring a high level of taleat to B.C.
and cause people to stay here and
plan holidays because of it. And
then we'll see if we cai market
that concept south of the border
and attract people from
Washington and Oregon and
California once they’ve seen the
complete calendar (of events).”’

Organizers are counting on the
magic power of music to lure local
residents, who make up about 40
per cent of the total $4 billion
tourism pie, to holiday in thei:
own backyards — a sort-of Socred
Pied Piper of Hamlin.

(That strategy will in part be
helped should the Persian Gulf
War extend into the summer
months, as jittery tourists worried
about terrorist attacks continue to
cancel out-of-country travel).

Lecky is so impressed with the
entertainment lineup he’s ready to
bet money on Music °91  suc-
ceeding — even when it comes to
drawing holidayers to less obvious
tourist destinations like 100 Mile
House and Fort St. John.

However, he guards against
over-confidence.

““We'll have to wait and see.
We haven't sold any tickets yet.
We'll know more after Feb. 28.
That will be the test.”*

So far, the response to Music
*91 has been surprisingly low key.
Part of the reason for that
response is because the event has
had an exceptionally short gear-up
period (about one year) so it
hasn’t had the time to build its
own hype.

Locally the muted reaction has
in part been due to time spent
convincing outside communities
the event will not be another Ex-
po, which excluded B.C. towns
from sharing in the bounty.

Last December, a group of local
entertainment booking agencies,
who traditionally handle acts for
such festivals, charged they were
being excluded from Music ’91 ac-
tion, But Lecky denies these
claims.

“It’s not true that we’re shut-
ting out free enterprise groups.
Sue Cook (a spokeswoman for
Siegel Entertainment who com-
plained that her company cannot
compete with The B.C. Year of
Music Society) has a bit of an axe
to grind. She says we’re not using
booking agenis. Well of course we
are. We buy talent just like
everybody else does...

“There are some misperceptions
about what Music ’91 is, which is
understandable because it’s been
such a fast-track thing. Mark
(Norman) at Perryscope (a Van-
couver promoter who says he has
already lost contracts to Music
’91) thought we were going to go
into the Coliseum and run rock
shows. We're not."

Besides which Lecky believes
none of these companies are
capable of handling such a
massive undertaking, one that has
never been attempted anywhere in
North America.

Nor could they afford the fi-
nancial risk, he says, of booking
big-name performers into remote
communities.

LYNN VALLEY
INSURANCE AGENCY LTD.

3171 MOUNTAIN HIGHWAY

Pleasure use only vehicles
for seniors over 65
25% discount

“Satisfied Clients are our Greatest

984-4515

HOURS: Mon-Fri. 9 AM - 5:30 PM

Sat.

EXTENDED HOURS:
_26 to 28 FEBRUARY

Your Insusance Brobket
Understands

9 AM - 4:30 PM

9 AM to 9 PM