Thread: Concert business feels immigration pinch

Concert business feels immigration pinch
By Leila Cobo and Ayala Ben-Yehuda
Sun Sep 30, 8:30 PM ET



There was no fear of immigration enforcement in the air at the recent Que Buena outdoor festival in El Monte, Calif. Throngs of families, many dressed in red, white and green, milled about during the all-day fest celebrating Mexican independence, listening to performances by Jenni Rivera, La Arrolladora Banda el Limon and dozens of others.

By producer Chris del Rey's calculations, at least 160,000 showed up during the day, equaling and maybe surpassing attendance from the year before.

Asking about immigration status at a family event like this one, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Lt. Sheila Sanchez said, is "not our mission."

Events such as this one, and the circuit of more underground dances known as "bailes," are considered central to the promotion and dissemination of regional Mexican music. And while all was well at Que Buena, the overall health of live regional Mexican music appears to be faltering.

In state after state, promoters say that burgeoning Mexican populations in towns little and big have hunkered down, out of sight and out of public events, to avoid confrontations withstepped-up immigration law enforcement.

Their fear has, by all accounts, made a significant dent in the lucrative regional Mexican market, with audiences often leery of attending the weekend shows that are the bread and butter of this music genre.

"The same groups that would bring me 4,500 people in Atlanta last year are now bringing 1,500," promoter Ariel Rivas said.

"This is real," Rivas added. "I live it every weekend. People are afraid to go out. They are afraid of immigration. I've been doing this for 10 years, and I've never seen a situation like this before."

MAKING CONTACT

Bailes, which literally translates to "dances," encompass a broad range of entertainment, from nightclubs that fit 4,000 and are primarily for dancing, to rodeos and fairgrounds that fit 15,000 and attract the whole family. Booked by a large network of independent promoters, these events do not generally report ticket sales to Billboard Boxscore, but they serve as a powerful marketing tool for labels, who use the shows to promote their acts.

All regional Mexican acts, whether new or established, do the baile circuit, typically playing 30 to 70 dates per year, in the process establishing a rapport with audiences that is near impossible to acquire in the more structured realm of pop.

"We have very direct contact with our fans every weekend," said Tony Melendez, lead singer of Conjunto Primavera, the most-played act on regional Mexican radio. "We always allow at least one hour to take pictures with fans and chat with them. It's very important for us to be close to the audience that buys our tickets."

Like many other acts, Primavera has cultivated its audience literally town by town. As the Mexican American population has flourished in even the remotest of states, so has the regional Mexican dance circuit.

Until the recent uptick in immigration enforcement, that is.

PROHIBITIONS PROLIFERATING

According to a paper written by Mai Thi Nguyen, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the perception in many small American towns that Hispanic population growth has hit a "critical mass" has led local governments to "take an anti-immigration stand and adopt ordinances that create a hostile living and working environment for immigrants."

There are now dozens of ordinances in place in at least 18 states. They run the gamut from English-only rules to landlords' demands for proof of legal status before renting homes or businesses, to fines levied against those who hire illegal immigrants. The ordinances have coincided with an uneven but stepped-up pattern of immigration law enforcement in the last two years.

Today, many state and local jurisdictions are permitted to enforce federal immigration law and can ask for proof of legal immigration status if they have detained someone on suspicion of breaking a criminal law. In other words, DUI checkpoints can suddenly represent an even greater risk than an alcohol-related arrest.

"When a local cop has any encounter with what they perceive to be a non-citizen -- and that could happen in a traffic arrest, in a fight in the street, people getting drunk, and that could happen at a concert -- they can put your name-check into the FBI national crime database," said Muzaffar A. Chishti, a lawyer and director of the Migration Policy Institute at New York University's School of Law.

The database includes those who fail to obey deportation orders, including those who may have an order pending for, say, overstaying a visa.

According to many in the music industry, the "crackdowns" are usually not crackdowns at all, but police checkpoints, ostensibly in place to check for drunk drivers. "These people want to know that it is safe to go to work and safe to go to a party," said Esperanza Ebersole, who runs radio station WNSO (Radio Sol) in Hilton Head, S.C.

"Last year, Los Tigres del Norte came to Greenville (N.C.) and played for 2,000 people. Recently, Banda El Recodo played and we barely had 700 people. The problem is not the bands. It's the economy and immigration. People are afraid to go out. Most don't have a driver's license (which they cannot obtain without proof of legal residence), and if the police stop them, they take them to immigration."

Rivas said he has seen DUI checkpoints set up directly in front of nightclubs or on key freeway exits. When word gets out, he said, people simply don't go to the shows.

Word often gets out via the radio, with listeners calling to report checkpoints or traffic stops.

In these cases, Ebersole said, she can't warn listeners about immigration enforcement, but she can exhort them to have their licenses ready for checkpoint inspections.

At Los Angeles station KBUE (La Que Buena), immigration is the topic that generates the most calls during the daily morning show, hosted by Don Cheto. Here, too, listeners phone in their warnings.

In those cases, "we ask the caller himself to get on the air and talk, so the police don't blame us for interfering," Cheto said. "Or, we make a joke about it. For example, if you have a driver's license and you want the police to see it, go to such and such address."

The blurred lines of where and how immigration law is enforced, and by whom, "breeds paranoia," said Kathleen Walker, an El Paso, Texas, attorney and president of the American Immigration Lawyers' Assn. "Nobody wants to end up in a detention facility because of some concert."

CALCULATING LOSSES

In California, promoter and radio network owner Abel De Luna blames the economy and a lack of new talent for the decline in concert attendance. But immigration enforcement alone, he said, accounts for 20 percent to 25 percent of the drop in his concert promotion business.

In Midwestern and Southeastern states, where Mexican immigration is more recent and less established, people like Rivas calculate that they can lose up to 50 percent of their business to fear of immigration crackdowns.

The dent in business is most visible in small towns where the influx of Mexican immigration has been quick and recent due to economic factors, like the opening of a meatpacking plant.

"You have towns where you had 10,000 people, and in a couple of years you have 30,000, many of them undocumented immigrants," De Luna said. "If you have a show there, and there is any rumor about immigration crackdowns, people will simply not go."

That anti-immigration actions can affect local businesses was made clear when the township of Riverside, N.J., on September 17 became the first municipality in the nation to rescind a local anti-immigration ordinance, responding to a lawsuit brought by a civil rights group on behalf of business owners and landlords.

One resident, Ed Robins, owner of Scott Street Music, was quoted in The New York Times as saying that the ordinance "took $50,000 a week off our streets. That's what was being spent by the Brazilians and Spanish."

But as the immigration debate continues to simmer unresolved in Congress, many concert promoters and venue owners have altered the way they do business. In many instances, for example, acts no longer receive a guarantee for their performance, but get paid by promoters according to ticket sales.

And while attendance may be down, Rivas said, the number of shows has remained stable.

"We are going to wait this out," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071001/mus ... ation_dc_1

Good, they are starting to feel the squeeze!

W

That was certainly Good News!!!

Hope the Enforcement continues.

"This is real," Rivas added. "I live it every weekend. People are afraid to go out. They are afraid of immigration. I've been doing this for 10 years, and I've never seen a situation like this before."

As well they should be! This is good!

Sob story alert.

"This is real," Rivas added. "I live it every weekend. People are afraid to go out. They are afraid of immigration. I've been doing this for 10 years, and I've never seen a situation like this before."

Ya! Real Good To Hear It!!! Hurray for the good guys!

They have brought it ALL on themselves- so no sympathy here.
Hopefully they will get so tired of the ducking and dodging they will GO HOME.




Head 'em up,move 'em out Rawhide!