it may not be a tourist destination like NYC or Disney world, but it is a viable weekend get away for a huge chunk of the population of the country.

 

Hmmm...urban vacations?  Not sure about that.  Sure, us urban geeks like "getting away from it all"...to another city!   But I always thought this meant to a rural or natural setting like a state resort park,  for most of the population. 

 

Even so what would make Columbus a weekend destination spot?  And is this the purpose of urban branding?  To market a place for leisure travel?

 

 

Well, I still think German Village is touristy just because it's such a unique place. I don't think any neighborhood in Columbus would be a "destination" but a lot of people do come into town for stuff going on at Nationwide Arena and the Convention Center. While they're in Columbus, they're going to look for some stuff to do locally. You know what surprised me when I lived in Cincinnati, is that Columbus seems to get an awful lot of bookings for popular concerts compared to other nearby cities. When I'd tell people I'm from Columbus, they would always go "I went to a concert there". I suppose it's because you have Indy, CIN and CLE within a couple hours of driving?  It would be interesting to find out more about how they choose to route their tours.

 

 

Well, I still think German Village is touristy just because it's such a unique place. I don't think any neighborhood in Columbus would be a "destination" but a lot of people do come into town for stuff going on at Nationwide Arena and the Convention Center. While they're in Columbus, they're going to look for some stuff to do locally. You know what surprised me when I lived in Cincinnati, is that Columbus seems to get an awful lot of bookings for popular concerts compared to other nearby cities. When I'd tell people I'm from Columbus, they would always go "I went to a concert there". I suppose it's because you have Indy, CIN and CLE within a couple hours of driving? It would be interesting to find out more about how they choose to route their tours.

 

I have noticed that Columbus does seem to get all of the big concerts, and a lot of lesser known bands at smaller venues too.  A bunch of my friends have made the trip up to Columbus for a night to see a band, and come home the same night.  This is one sector of tourism that Columbus does very well in, I'd imagine.  They might not get the sports tourism (other than OSU football games) that Cincy or Cleveland get (they might actually...not sure, but just a guess), but I do think the city gets a fair amount of music travelers.  Perhaps the city could start to market itself as it's Texan twin Austin has done, as a live music capital?

It's kinda strange because US Bank Arena doesn't have as much going on and both arenas have hockey teams that take up a lot of slots but US Bank, I'd assume would be much more convenient to book for that reason. Basically Columbus and Cincinnati have pretty comparable venues for concerts overall; it must be the central location. If the buses are heading east or west, maybe Columbus is the city of choice so they don't have to go up or down for Cleveland or Cincinnati. Columbus is more of a straight shot to Pittsburgh and Indy and people don't mind driving a couple hours to see their favorite bands. I don't think people travel as much for sports. I'm really curious to find out how that stuff works though.

Very true about the concerts. It seems all the bands I like hardly ever go to Cleve or Cincy, but most always pop up in Cbus.

It also doesn't hurt it has the (second) largest university in the nation to help fuel those ticket sales.

It's kinda strange because US Bank Arena doesn't have as much going on and both arenas have hockey teams that take up a lot of slots but US Bank, I'd assume would be much more convenient to book for that reason. Basically Columbus and Cincinnati have pretty comparable venues for concerts overall; it must be the central location. If the buses are heading east or west, maybe Columbus is the city of choice so they don't have to go up or down for Cleveland or Cincinnati. Columbus is more of a straight shot to Pittsburgh and Indy and people don't mind driving a couple hours to see their favorite bands. I don't think people travel as much for sports. I'm really curious to find out how that stuff works though.

 

I could be wrong, but I thought most of the big concerts in Cbus were in the arena where OSU plays basketball.  I'm not aware of any of my friends going to a show at Nationwide Arena.  In the summer, Riverbend and the new PNC Pavillion have really made Cincinnati a pretty good concert destination, and you definitely see people from far away coming to Cincinnati for those.  I think it's the Fall/Winter/Spring (indoors, basically) where Cincinnati loses out to Columbus a little.  US Bank arena is kind of shitty, and the other options are either the Taft, Music Hall, or one of the arenas at area universities (NKU's new arena has had some good bookings lately including Jay Z).

 

As far as sports travel goes, I definitely think it's a huge industry.  Go to a Bengals game against the Steelers and just look at how many people are from Pittsburgh, and spent the weekend in Cincy.  Same goes for some Reds series as well (Cardinals, Cubs, Braves, Indians).  You get some of that with college sports, particularly football, but I don't think as much as at the pro level.  I read/heard somewhere that sports tourism is the second biggest economic producer in the field of sports behind advertising of course.  I'll try to find where I read that.

You have to keep in mind, the Ohio State fanbase nationally has a huge economic impact on Columbus.

A band never plays Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland/Blossom and Indy during the same tour. If Cleveland and Cincy get a show, Columbus never does. And, usually, if Cleveland and Indy get a show, then Columbus doesn't. Columbus and Cincinnati both can get a show if Indy and Cleveland don't.

A band never plays Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland/Blossom and Indy during the same tour. If Cleveland and Cincy get a show, Columbus never does. And, usually, if Cleveland and Indy get a show, then Columbus doesn't. Columbus and Cincinnati both can get a show if Indy and Cleveland don't.

 

Yeah, I've noticed that pattern but overall I think other large metros in Ohio get the short end of the stick with concerts. If you look at a map, Columbus is a good compromise because it draws people from Cleveland, Detroit (maybe even a little of Chicago considering the size of the population despite distance) Indy, Cincinnati, Lex-Louisville and Pittsburgh. If you look at the U.S. highway system, Cincinnati isn't a very efficient city to stop in because the highways are not connected well at all to the population centers of the east coast. You can only leave Cincinnati going north, south or west whereas Columbus' I-70 runs more parallel to other large cities east and west while drawing from those that are north and south. Cincinnati-Cleveland would make sense if they are heading to population centers in the southern united states but even that isn't logical to me since most of the largest cities in the southern portion of the U.S. from the west coast to east coast tend to be pretty parallel east-west. I'm not an expert but that's probably the logic I would use if I did the route planning. A Cleveland show then Cincinnati show seems less logical since the farther south you go, the less demand for tickets from people around all of those large great lakes population centers.

 

Edit: I just thought of something. You would probably p!ss off a lot of fans if you consistently evaded their hometown lol. Plus, with marketing being so complex these days, they probably know from spyware, facebook and myspace where their largest fanbases are and that might be a contributing factor.

 

I'm probably making people go cross-eyed trying to describe this sh!t spatially  :-o

 

Cincy's a good stop if Atlanta, Nashville or Knoxville are on the schedule. I've noticed that Iron Maiden don't stop in Cincinnati much these days.

A friend of mine that's in the record biz said the reason Cincy doesn't get as many shows as C-bus of Cleveland stems from the size of the their potential audience and listener stream.  If you think about it, you have a better chance at seeing an indy or alternative band in Cleveland or Columbus than in Cincy, although I have been surprised that more eclectic bands have been playing at PNC Pavilion, Madison Theater and Southgate House.

I guess it can't be too hard to tell where you'll make the most money. I mean if one city sells out at so many numbers of tickets while the other city didn't sell out and it's determined that ticket prices have to be lower in that city then it's not really worth going there. Like I always say though, I really don't think Cincinnati has an older population than Columbus or Cleveland. Count up the numbers of all the students at NYU, Miami, UC Main/Raymond Walters, Xavier, Cincinnati State, Thomas Moore, Mt. St. Joseph and you do have a lot of young people who go to concerts. If Columbus has a particularly high number of young people it's probably because of the immigrants and they tend to not buy tickets to Black Crows or Jay-Z.

 

It can't just be about age group though. GCrites goes to Iron Maiden concerts. He's from the "Disco Sucks - lets ball some groupies after the show - where's the pot and quaaludes?" generation lol. There's probably a lot more metalheads in Columbus than Cincinnati though.

Believe it or not, I think the number of metalheads is about the same in both cities and I kind of like Italo Disco.

 

If you are an alt rock or indie (as in the genre, not label status), Columbus is the place to be. This city has an insatiable appetite for that kind of music -- sometimes at the expense of all other genres. That's one reason Cincy might get skipped by those bands.