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.

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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.

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