Now that the dust has settled, it’s pretty clear that the Oregon Jamboree this year was one of the best, if not the biggest, ever.
The numbers are still being crunched, but all indications were that the Saturday night crowd was as big as it’s ever been.
That’s good news, particularly as I heard a number of complaints leading up to the event that, well, the line-up wasn’t quite what it’s been in the past.
I don’t want to sound more enthusiastic than I should here, but if you were there you knew some special things happened. Not being a huge country music fan personally, I’d never been to an Aaron Tippin concert or heard Jo Dee Messina perform live before. I’ve heard Neal McCoy four times in the last three years, so the fact that his performance was a big crowd-pleaser wasn’t a surprise.
But it seemed that, even though we may not have had an ultra-megastar headliner this year like Gretchen Wilson or LoneStar. the audience didn’t care that much.
When Messina performed 10 extra numbers for a crowd that stayed on its feet for 45 minutes, you knew something really special was happening. It was a capstone to a great three days of music that most in the audience really appreciated.
So now what? That’s the question the Sweet Home Economic Development Group board members and Jamboree personnel have to come up with an answer for.
SHEDG and Jamboree officials have made it pretty clear that if the Jamboree is going to continue as the biggest (and best) outdoor country music festival in the state of Oregon, some progress is going to have to be made in finding a location that can accommodate a bigger crowd, which would enable organizers to afford the high-priced mega acts that are starting to become difficult to book in the current facilities.
A front-page story in another area newspaper last week served up a chilly reminder that this is an issue Sweet Home must deal with.
The city of Lebanon has taken possession of 99 acres surrounding Cheadle Lake and has conceptual plans for a sports complex, a new amphitheater, RV camping, and exhibition hall, picnic spots and parking for 1,200 vehicles. City staff wants to purchase an additional 30 acres of former industrial lumber mill land and plans to apply for grants to clean it up and turn it into a park.
We’ve been hearing about Cheadle Lake plans for quite a while. Fact is, it’s happening.
That’s just one more reason why SHEDG needs to find a seller who has the kind of acreage that would enable Sweet Home to put in an amphitheater and the necessary facilities to make the Jamboree what it could and needs to become.
The point of saying all this is not to focus pressure on those who must make these decisions. The pressure’s already there. This is for all the rest of us.
The Jamboree is successful primarily because Sweet Home residents put their doubts aside in the early years and bought into the idea.
After 15 years, our Jamboree volunteers are very good at what they do. Jo Dee Messina complimented our local backstage crew Sunday night after they obliterated the previous record for putting away her show. These volunteers, under the direction of their veteran leader Troy Hopper, far surpassed the best efforts of union crews in other venues, she said. She was impressed. She would have been more impressed to see how many other people worked around the clock to make sure the event ran as smoothly as it did.
During the Jamboree, I walk around the grounds taking notes, shooting photos, passing out the programs we publish and just watching. I see and hear quite a bit, most of it simply people enjoying themselves immensely. This is happening because of the character of Sweet Home people who have put their egos aside, bought into the plan, and pitched in to make it happen.
It’s certainly been a big plus to have professional staff who know what they’re doing, but without the volunteers, as Jamboree Director Peter LaPonte and others frequently remind us, we wouldn’t have this.
The point is that it looks like it’s going to take more community spirit and possibly some sacrifice, to move to the next level, a level that could benefit the town much more extensively than the three-day Jamboree does now.
There’s land to be had in Sweet Home, but prices are high and SHEDG has limited funds. The board has been prudent in how it spends the money it’s made and it has saved enough to make buying property a real possibility (pardon the pun). But given the realities of the current real estate market, it may take a landowner who is thinking of more than just his or her pocketbook to make this happen.
Think about it: What could a dedicated concert facility, which would likely include a year-round amphitheater, do for Sweet Home?
A series of smaller concerts or other performances during the year could bring more visitors to Sweet Home, maybe even fans of other types of music than country. Given the right mix of businesses catering to such visitors, that would result in a significant flow of cash into the local economy. If we were to have, say, a cool jazz, or blues, or bluegrass, or gospel concert, I’m betting the people who might come for that aren’t people who necessarily visit Sweet Home frequently.
They would eat at local restaurants, shop in local stores, maybe get interested in becoming residents themselves in some cases. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to have more shops and restaurants for them to frequent, but that’s a hurdle that can be negotiated after the fact.
Sweet Home is about logging, first and foremost, and probably always will be. But anyone who has watched the parade of RVs into town on the Thursday afternoon and Friday morning before the Oregon Jamboree can see the huge potential to be more than just a timber town.
People who have spent a long time in Sweet Home sometimes don’t realize how attractive this town could be to visitors. We take the lakes and the river for granted. May city residents, particularly, crave what we have. If we have more to lure them here, the potential impact on this town is great. It’s more than any of our friends down the road have, but Sweet Home has to do what it takes.
A lot of the good in Sweet Home has taken place because somebody made it happen. If the right landowner steps up and makes it possible for a permanent concert facility to be built here, Sweet Home will have a big debt of gratitude to pay.
That’s the spirit that built the Jamboree.