What if they gave an awards show and nobody came? That's what happened a few weeks ago when the much anticipated and heavily promoted Oasis Awards event was canceled just a few days before it was scheduled. It was the ‘thud heard around the world’ as far as the contemporary/smooth jazz community was concerned, and it happened at the same time that the local heritage smooth jazz station, KIFM, shifted their approach to "Smooth A/C" - oldie pop vocals and a few instrumentals tossed in between. The question that flew quickly through emails, blogs, and social networking pages was "Is this the final blow?” “Does this prove that people are no longer interested in this music?"  Well, no. My feeling is that it shows how some of the elite members of our community have lost touch with the audience and the times we live in.

It's the economy, stupid. It's the stupid economy. It's the way our lives and our priories have changed over the 11 years since the original Oasis Awards ceremony occurred. This was a red carpet event in an increasingly blue collar world. Looking at the original promotional material kept me from considering a trip across the country. It was going to be a weekend cluttered with high-end events: A Gala, Red Carpet Reception, Celebrity Golf Tournament, Celebrity Poker Tournament, Dressy Reception, Champagne Brunch, and even a fashion show! Somewhere in there was some music too; an off-site concert to benefit cancer research and the Awards event itself. Early-bird VIP packages would cost $300, or you could cherry pick the events at prices starting from about $50 each for the Champagne Brunch and going upward from there.

The San Diego Union Tribune's article on the cancellation, quoted an industry person as saying the promoters "bit off more than they could chew." My feeling is that they bit off more than we, the fans, could chew and that had nothing to do with the music that was being featured. I live as far away from San Diego as you can get, so my airfare would be a little higher, but otherwise the expenses are pretty much in line with what anyone else would incur. Airfare would have been around $500 if I booked early and traveled by the dark of night with one carry-on. Although, with all these dress-up events that would have been impossible. The "official hotel" was the Hard Rock. Hmmmm...about $200 per night for their smallest rooms, which tend to book quickly so probably more like $300 a night so that's going to run about $600 unless I can find 4-6 (or 20) of my closest friends to share the room with.  The VIP ticket would add another $300, which is less than buying each event separately. We're pushing $1,000 already and haven't even considered food, drink, transportation, or the inevitable add-on costs.

Now let's look at the invisible budget-eaters. First, many people are coming as couples. That means a double hit on the household budget so multiply the above by two. This is not a family oriented event so parents would have to make plans for child care either at home or on-site, especially if the kids were young. The Hard Rock does not allow animals; neither do several of the surrounding hotels, so there would be boarding or pet sitting charges if you didn't have a friend who can look after the animals.  Also, a lot of us who were riding high in 2000, the year of the highly successful initial Oasis Awards event, are now downsized professionals whose income has lowered as the cost of living has soared. Even if we have managed to keep decent paying jobs there are probably family members who are unemployed or underemployed. A lot of us have picked up second jobs that require weekend work or full time jobs that do not offer paid time off. That means a loss of several days' income. People are also less likely to hit the plastic. Interest rates have soared since the early 2000's and with job insecurity running rampant people are less inclined to incur debt. Then there are the social events, see and be seen types of things that would be somewhat uncomfortable for all but the most polished and poised.

Too expensive and too much stress. That was my first impression when I saw the agenda for this event. I imagine I was not alone in this evaluation because after an initial spike of VIP sales things pretty much came to a grinding halt. That too, is reflective of our current economy, where things are getting better for a small percentage of people at the upper end, but the disparity between the upper and middle classes is still growing and an equal disparity between the upper-upper and the upper classes is developing. "Them that got still get," but everyone else is trying to hang on.

The fear buzz that flew when the cancellation was first announced was that the music had lost its appeal to the point where people didn't care enough to show up for an event that awarded the favorites they voted for. My feeling is that they were clinging to their cash because the event was simply too expensive to attend, especially if you had to travel. An event like this would rely on a good amount of people coming in from out of town.

 Another question: might people have been more inclined to make the trip of there had been more of a focus on music events and less on social events? The Seabreeze Festival is thriving. That festival is all about the music with very few social events involved. People are still booking the cruises, which may be the financial priority for those who can afford one vacation or event in a given year. Local music oriented festivals are still doing well.

This is not the first time there has been a disconnect between our real lives and the perception of event planners or radio programmers. Remember the short lived Chill thing? A small group of jet-setting executives were in Europe and noticed that upscale younger people were hanging out in high-end restaurants that played Chill music in the background.  They flew back to the states and declared it the trend that would save the genre. We all know how that worked out. How about radio stations that encouraged their nighttime female hosts to deliver their breaks in a sexy purr - talking straight to the guys - in spite of the fact that women loved this music too and didn't want to hear a come-hither delivered to their guys after every three songs. Or the radio stations that assumed everyone who was listening was a devoted consumer who staked their identity on high status purchases and related to them as such. Obviously there was the assumption that we would all tune out any station that dared to play an electric guitar solo or a "blaring horn" that ended up watering down the recorded music until it was no longer interesting.

What has the cumulative cost of these disconnects been? Look around. There is some irresistible music being made, especially in the live setting, and artists are beginning to stretch out and bring that to their recorded projects, too, but we have to shake off the image that our entire genre is nothing more than background music for an AARP sponsored cocktail party.

Time to rethink. Time to reboot. Time to look around at the people who are getting blown away by this music when they see it live. Time to look at those people in all their infinite diversity, take the music off the pedestal, shed the “lifestyle” trappings and deliver. That is our future.

I applaud the producers of the Oasis Awards for giving it a try. They put a lot of thought, time, effort, and imagination into this project. I also applaud the promoters and fans who created alternative concerts, managed to save the day for a lot of the off-site concerts, and give attendees some exciting events that were all about the music. There were some fine music events that came up that weekend - Ken Levenson gathered Facebook fans to make lemonade out of lemons for a Lemonade Weekend. Several venues hosted concerts. Michelle Abrams' CJazz concert series delivered a stellar lineup for The Concert For Cancer. There were so many others that showed up in spite of the bumps in the road. That was truly an affirmation that, although the "lifestyle" is becoming more and more irrelevant, the music is getting stronger. It's a matter of taking the blinders off and seeing all the possibilities and using our creativity to come up with even more.