Syracuse Ska Forum

It really sucks that Syracuse lost out on hosting Ska Is Dead 3 in part because of a venue shortage. If we had some larger venue options, the sound guy at Tundra wouldn't be demanding such ridiculous rates and getting them. That's a clear lack of competition problem.

It seems like everytime we get a decent larger venue, greed sets in and kills it off. Time and again.

But we have no shortage of good local ska bands right now and we've had a good amount of success getting kids out to the shows we've had. That all very much in spite of our bad situation. But it puts more pressure on us, because we have a constant onslaught of bands from places like Buffalo, Rochester and Albany wanting to play here and really not understanding why that's so difficult more often than not. They seem to have the opposite problem -- plenty of venue options, but a lack of local bands able to draw.

It's just very, very frustrating.

Sheesh, if I had the venues those other cities have, I'd be booking mad shows all the time. Even with the problems they have. Because with some venue options, you can work the other issues out. When you have nowhere to do shows like SID3, that just really, really hurts.

Okay, sorry for the rant.