The producer Gary Mandell looked uncommonly haggard and let-down last night trudging through the vestibule at City Hall after a deeply disappointing meeting as the peanut-sized clock nearby struck midnight in two significant ways.
Besides signaling the start of a new day, it likely rang in the end for an old(er) entrepreneur.
Turning toward his wife, Mr. Mandell said, ominously, “I think I am losing interest.”
Crucially, so has the City Council.
After 10 successful years as the producer of the Summer Music Festival — pockmarked with thorny annual disputes — the Council did everything last night but hand Mr. Mandell his hat and usher him through the door.
Which Way, Culver City?
After years of almost instinctively shielding Mr. Mandell from his scattered critics, the Council, like a restless sleeper, rolled forth and back across the bed for 2 ½ hours, unable to make up its mind.
Before Mr. Mandell’s saddened eyes, Council members grappled, loosely, uncertainly, with the boldest-yet recommendations enthusiastically approved on Sept. 14 by the Cultural Affairs Commission:
• To escape regional competition by shifting the concerts from Thursday nights at 7 to Sunday afternoons at 4,
• To shrink the Summer Music Festival from 8 dates to 4 with Mr. Mandell as producer, and then
• To hand the four uncoupled dates to a supposedly more modern, adaptable producer who will attract a younger demographic.
No One Hot for Sunday
Moving concerts to hot summer afternoons brought the fastest rejection, mainly because of the weather. The Councilmen affirmed a ban on alcohol while noting that spirits have been creeping more openly into audience favor.
Every year around this time, as one Councilman noted, the Summer Music Festival becomes “the touchiest subject in Culver City,” largely because of City Hall’s sometimes chilly relationship with the much-accomplished Mr. Mandell.
For at least half of his decade of service, certain City Hall elements —some tiptoed, others clippity-clopped — have been trying, stridently, to dump him.
The Malsin Plan
Led last night by Scott Malsin, its chief idea person, the City Council directed city staff to dramatically reconfigure concert evenings by aggressively pursuing a new producer.
Susan Obrow, the city’s Special Events Coordinator, was ordered to court the hippest radio station on the Westside, KCRW(89.9) in Santa Monica, to see if it is amenable to a forming a permanent partnership that would turn festival dynamics upside down
Here is the express mission of Ms. Obrow when she talks to public radio’s KCRW:
In the name of radically diversifying and updating the genres of music that have been the popular fare under Mr. Mandell and his weekly capacity crowds, she is to see if the station is interested in “programming” the concerts, that is, becoming the new producer.
This could be a marriage made in both heaven and Culver City.
Council members are hungering for the kind of cymbal-clanging promotional treatment that the Santa Monica College public radio station showers on its events, such as their recent “KCRW Summer Nights” series (http://www.kcrw.com/events/summer-nights-2010)
KCRW is known for its imaginative programming that not only is varied but, some say, almost too diverse. A partnership with the station and possibly also with the LA Weekly, would instantly transform and accelerate the image of the Summer Music Festival through two much wider reaching megaphones.
How interested or intrigued is the station?
“We would like to hold off on commenting for now,” Rachel Reynolds, KCRW’s Music Publicity Director, told the newspaper this afternoon. “It is too early to determine what our response will be.”
Back in Culver City, the Council is seeking a three-tiered reward if only the station will accept a proposal of professional marriage:
• If well-connected KCRW will select and hire the weekly artists and
• Follow through by publicizing the Culver City shows over its influential electronic megaphones,
• Then City Hall can formally cashier Mr. Mandell, variously criticized for what Council members privately called his “arrogance” and “stubbornness.”
After Ms. Obrow explained that Mr. Mandell’s annual contract is renewed in February, Council members said they were relieved they have sufficient time to woo KCRW.
Mr. Malsin spoke carefully about his blue ribbon radio strategy. “We are going to explore whether KCRW is a feasible alternative (to Mr. Mandell),” he said. “If it is feasible, we will decide which way we want to go. We need to find out whether we have an alternative.”
He envisions a grand makeover festival theme such as “Culver City Becomes Eclectic,” a title not so subtlely borrowed from the station’s popular “Mornings Become Eclectic” program.
Obviously a fan of 89.9, Mr. Malsin said that “KCRW is tapped into great music. They have a terrific ability to get word out about what an interesting, creative and exciting place Culver City is.”
If there is to be a new producer next summer, it only will be KCRW. Otherwise, Mr. Mandell would return.
Mr. Malsin rejected the notion of hanging out a Help Wanted sign, which in uncolorful government lexicon is called a Request for Proposal. The Council tried that a few years ago. Every applicant was decidedly unappealing.
“No harm in exploring any good option,” Mr. Malsin said.
