Do people who love music love Hard Rock Cafe?

From Exit50. Show from March 2005 SXSW.

In "Hard Rock Cafe closes on East Sixth Street: Restaurant opened four years ago," the Austin American-Statesman reports that Austin's Hard Rock Cafe has closed.

Austin is known for the primacy of music and live music, the 30 years running "Austin City Limits" PBS television program that shows concerts, and the annual SXSW music conference which brings attention to hundreds of bands every year.

Hence, live music is one of the primary differentiating factors that makes Austin, Texas a real, authentic place, and one worth visiting. (Along with the University of Texas, the State Capitol and government, and high-technology.)

Super tall Live Oak trees are another defining characteristic of Austin, Texas. Photo by Steve Nix from about.com.

So it makes sense that a manufactured eater-tainment place like Hard Rock Cafe would have a hard time competing against the real thing.

This place looks fun, huh? Photo by Traveling Chicken.

From the article:

The Hard Rock Cafe on East Sixth Street shut down Tuesday, after four years in the downtown entertainment district. When the themed restaurant-bar opened in 2002, many downtown promoters touted it as a welcome family- and tourist-friendly addition to a district heavy on bars, music clubs and tattoo parlors. The company restored an 1870s vintage building. But the Austin location succumbed to below-expectation sales. "We know that they have struggled in terms of making that (concept) work for the (Austin) model," said Molly Alexander, associate director of the Downtown Austin Alliance....Hard Rock has 11 years left on its 15-year lease.

How many families do you know that are looking to go out together to see music at clubs such as the 9:30 Club or the Black Cat, especially after 9:30 pm when the concerts start (although Black Cat has a fabulous juke box and decent food)?

A family-friendly looking band, The Slackers, at the 9:30 Club. Flickr photo by Crazysax9. A different show maybe from De La Soul, a band that I saw at the Club maybe 8 years ago or so. By the time they came on, after 12:30 a.m. (long after the subway stopped running), I was one of just a few white people left to watch the show. With either band, it's unlikely that such entertainment is high on the list for family-friendly entertainment.

Or, how many couples over 35 do you know that go out drinking and dancing every weekend, and once or twice during the week, and then think about the household composition of greater Capitol Hill and then ruminate over the worries expressed by various stakeholders over concern about Barracks Row--8th Street SE--becoming the next Adams-Morgan?

It's necessary to know what your assets are and how to market them.

If you don't know, you're likely to fail, or at the very least, not enjoy nearly as much success as you would like.

See previous entries "Even more about rocking revitalization" and "Rocking Revitalization." And this article from Media Life on the new Ecast jukeboxes offers some interesting data that bears on these questions.

Demographics. Bar patrons are evenly divided, male and female and generally fall into the 18-34 age group, according to a 2005 Nielsen Entertainment report. Additionally, 44 percent of bar patrons make $25,000 to $75,000 a year, but a significant number, 26 percent, make more than $100,000 a year. The same Nielsen study found that 61 percent of bar patrons have gone to college or pursued advanced degrees.

What: Interactive ads placed on jukebox screens in bars and restaurants. Who: Ecast Network, headquartered in San Francisco. How it works: Advertising is placed on interactive screens on the front of jukeboxes.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization; concerts-music; retail