Promoter Talks About The Change in Venue for Metallica's Orion Festival
Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 02.25.2013
He says Detroit will be better than Atlantic City...
C3 Presents executive Charlie Walker spoke today with Billboard about the announced change of Orion Music + More Festival's location from last year's Atlantic City to Detroit. The festival takes place on June 8th and 9th. Check out the highlights:
On moving the festival to Belle Isle in Detroit: "We've always had Belle Isle on the list; we just never had quite the right show to go there. We thought the [Orion] concept had [proven] itself, and Detroit, with that rich musical history plus a great rock history and the fact that there's this gorgeous island in the middle of the river, it seemed like a good place to go."
On the location: "In Atlantic City, because of the sheer number of casinos, it was difficult for us to get affordable hotel rooms for the audience. We found they were much higher than we wanted our customers to have to pay. Because of the fact Atlantic City is based on tourism, they were able to get those high summer rates. When we were looking for a new home, we wanted to get a little better range of hotel options for our customers."
On Metallica playing just one night instead of two like last year: "The Metallica guys are really quite busy through the weekend, we found, with their own things, and all the side projects going on. It was a little much for them to play both nights and do all the other stuff they're involved in during the festival. It was a great opportunity to put another big headliner on and, we think, make it even more special."
