Annual Farm Aid Concert Coming to St. Louis Region in October 2009
Last week Farm Aid announced, at Soulard Farmers’ Market, their 2009 concert will be held at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Maryland Heights Missouri (a St. Louis suburb) on Sunday October 4, 2009.
Farm Aid’s mission:
To build a vibrant, family farm-centered system of agriculture in America. Farm Aid artists and board members Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews host an annual concert to raise funds to support Farm Aid’s work with family farmers and to inspire people to choose family-farmed food. Since 1985, Farm Aid has raised nearly $35 million to support programs that help farmers thrive, expand the reach of the Good Food Movement, take action to change the dominant system of industrial agriculture and promote food from family farms.
Some interesting facts from the press kit:
- St. Louis County has 276 farms sitting on 32,292 acres or almost 10 percent of the county’s land.
- The average St. Louis County farm has average gross sales of $86,203, while the average net income per farm is $20,587.
- With 107,825 farms, Missouri ranks second in the country for the state with the most farms. more than 96% are family-owned.
- 96% of the 691,235 farms in Missouri and neighbors (Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, & Tennessee) are family-owned and operated.
Basically we have many family-owned farms around us, more than I thought.
Online many noted that the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater is built on former farm land protected from flooding by levees. Not exactly a natural choice but I can’t think of another outdoor venue in the region that could host this annual fund raising concert.
Once rich farm land is now parking and casino. The proportion of parking to destination is shocking when viewed from above.
I welcome Farm Aid to the St. Louis region. Their message of strengthening the family farm and eating good food is needed.
– Steve Patterson
After enjoying the Sheryl Crow and Elvis Costello concert during All-Star Game Weekend, I was hoping they could do more big concerts under the Arch, especially a one-time big event like Farm Aid. Based on numbers for the Obama rally a year ago and the All-Star concert, the Arch grounds can handle many more people than Verizon.
Also an interesting note…
In 1993, Mellencamp was supposed to play a flood benefit concert at what was then just Riverport with the flood waters just feet from the top of the levee (basically, everything left of the parking lot was underwater, no casino back then). It was cancelled, because of the threat of the levee breaking, and trapping or drowning everyone at the concert. Specifically they were worried about the vibrations caused by the loud music liquifiying the earthen levee which was already saturated and under pressure from the flood waters.
“The proportion of parking to destination” may be “shocking”, but it’s reflective of several things. One, mass transit obviously wasn’t a consideration, although more than a few patrons use taxis and limos. Two, few vehicles going to a show are single-occupant vehicles, so car-pooling mitigates the impacts of using private vehicles to move up to 22,000 people. And three, it’s definitely not mixed use – 325+ days a year the parking sits unused – too bad a megachurch, a pro football stadium or another complementary use can’t/doesn’t share the site and the parking – Harrah’s surface parking may not be as large, but it’s nearly as vacant. And, for better or worse, it’s not that much worse than the areas south and west of Busch Stadium: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=busch+stadium&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=49.71116,78.662109&ie=UTF8&ll=38.621255,-90.194653&spn=0.005826,0.009602&t=h&z=17
If nothing else, this illustrates the relative land values that drive too many regional land use decisions. Obviously, the value of Missouri farmland is relatively (depressingly?) low, otherwise there’d be a lot less surface parking and a lot more structured parking, a lot less single-family sprawl and a lot more higher-density, multi-family construction, and a lot less sprawl. As Farm Aid struggles to champion, the simple economics of the family farm are really tough, and selling out is many times the only option left when times get tough . . .
(Riverport/Verizon/whatever) is a horrible venue to hear music and it’s ironic that Farmaid is playing there since it was once great farm land, and not that long ago either….
Two thoughts on this topic:
1. I agree with Matt B that the Arch Grounds would be a great venue for Farm Aid. I mean, what better venue could you get than under the Arch in early October? Talk about great weather (at least it should be by that time).
2. Finally, I can post a rant on this site: The Khalahari Desert of a parking lot @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre is definitely a product of the Maryland Heights Community Development dept machine. I was an intern for the City of Maryland Heights Community Development dept. back in the summer of ’07 and I can tell you first hand that they just want to make $$$ without any concern for sustainable development, loss of farmland or building in a floodplain, period. Unfortunately, most suburban municipalities here and elsewhere operation this way. Blah.
And the City of Maryland Heights’ idea of turning Dorsett Road into the “main street of Maryland Heights” (I’m serious. I was asked to do research for it. I about threw up.) has got to be one of the most outrageous urban planning/community development notions I have ever heard of. Granted, I don’t know what other street could serve as the “main street of Maryland Heights” considering that Maryland Heights is pretty much suburbia hell, but Dorsett Road is a pretty tough sell to me and the majority of people I know.
Farm Aid isn’t a free concert like Live on the Levee – the only way it would work is if the Arch grounds were completely fenced and secured, and I’m not sure we’d want to do this with a national park.
Valid point Jimmy Z but people pay to ride up the Arch Elevator, so what’s $$$ for a Farm Aid ticket on the very same Arch grounds? I’ll gladly answer my own question: because you don’t want to desecrate a national monument for a concert event in the name of profit for a completely different entity. But, I would like to see Farm Aid under the Arch just as long as some of the gate money went to the Gateway Memorial Park in some shape or form.
They already “fence and secure” the Arch grounds for Fair St. Louis. Everyone attending must pass through security guards stationed along Memorial Drive and subject themselves to being padded down in order to gain access to the park.
They could do the same thing for a concert if they wanted to. Add a second row of screeners to collect tickets. Easy.
Maybe some of the proceeds could go towards improving the connection between downtown and the Arch grounds! Or maybe they ought to hold a separate benefit concert and call it “Arch Aid”. Or how about “Band Aid” for the proposed lid-over-I-70 plan?