A POOR TIME FOR A NEW STARTUP
I negotiated favorable flat, no percentage deals for all of the concert venues I worked with. Unfortunately, with the evolving Watergate crisis, oil embargo, price and wage controls, soaring interest rates and the recession of 1972-73, it was a poor time to begin another startup. If I had only played my two most successful markets, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Milwaukee, I probably would have weathered the economic downturn.
Using the NRC contracting formulas to extend my tours into smaller towns such as Sioux City, Sioux Falls, Duluth and Lincoln, Nebraska, we took the tours into the red and I was ultimately forced to sell all of my property and investments two years later at the age of thirty four.
After losing nearly all my money in the recession of ’72-73 with the Garrett Attractions Midwest startup, I sold the Vasa Orphanage Farm that I had purchased in Welches, Minnesota, loaded up the family (ma, pop and four kids) and headed south on a road trip in our GMC Suburban
We hit San Antonio, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, and went down into Mexico. We visited Zacatecas, Guadalajara, Magdalena and over to Puerto Vallarta. We were gone for six weeks and except for the fact that most of us ended up getting Montezuma’s revenge, it was a great trip. When we got back to western Washington, all I had left was my vacation retreat in the mountains, personal possessions and 10k in crispies that I had salted away in a safety deposit box.
Fortunately I secured a contract to produce and manage the Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Shows at the Puyallup and Monroe fairgrounds, and Seattle Center Coliseum (a real downer for someone who had just recently managed tours for big name artists such as Neal, Janis, blah de blah...
That contract provided enough income to support my family, so I started to think about new businesses that would work for me and at that point, I had a substantial tool box for projects that involved event management, sales, advertising, marketing agreements and promotion.