The back of my 1988 Casio keyboard had an empty socket. Simply marked “sustain,” teenage Josh set out to discover its purpose.
I sliced off the end of a pair of headphones, plugged it into the back and taped the bare wires together.
As I played notes with one hand and twisted wires with the other, the tones came out in long, drawn out sounds. Some tape and a bent piece of tin later, I had my first home-built sustain pedal.
I’ve always loved the junction of music and technology. In college, I attempted to force the boxy monochrome computers atop electric pianos to talk to each other by stringing a web of phone cords across the room in a cat’s cradle of OSHA violations. As a reward/punishment, I was permitted to design the school’s first electronic music studio.
As someone who is as passionate about music technology as I am about our economic future, Moogfest’s official departure from Asheville was a double blow.
Moogfest combined thumping electronica I was a little too old for with brainy discussions I was a little too dumb for. It brought to town different classes of people — bermuda-shorts-wearing tourists and bearded beer aficionados walked beside skinny-tied intellectuals and neon-haired electronica fans.
It’s a mix of people we won’t soon see again.
The festival wasn’t a commercial hit for Moog, but it represented one possible future for Asheville. A piece of destiny that heralded a brighter path than the current tourism reputation that we seem to be settling for.
The 2014 festival ended up losing $1.4 million — a hit to Moogfest’s books as they paid the difference — but many area businesses came out on top.
According to a joint study by the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Coalition, sales tax revenues went up by nearly $700,000 during Moogfest’s run. Big technology sponsors lent their names to the event. Overall, the study estimated that the festival had a $14 million impact for the area.
The cost to taxpayers for that impact? The city kicked in $90,000, and the county added another $90,000 — 0.06 and 0.02 percent of their operating budgets, respectively. And, while that’s not an inconsequential number, the city and county deal with with annual budgets of hundreds of millions. In fact, if dollars in their budgets were represented by the number of words this column, the impact of Moogfest on their budget would be roughly the first letter of the first word.
I’ve talked to a lot of people who didn’t like Moogfest. In fact, distaste for Moogfest may be the one issue I’ve seen that unites local conservatives and progressives. So I realize that this column may put me in the minority.
I do believe, though, that if it was given time to pick up steam, the festival would have done its part to help Asheville’s technology sector grow and played at least a partial role as a chord in diversifying our economy.
Its departure feels like an admission in a larger narrative that we’re giving up on trying to be a big player in the tech space. Other festivals will come along, but they’re most likely to celebrate beer or food — topics that ultimately cement our reputation as a place to visit and leave in favor of towns with richer job opportunities.
I understand why Moogfest couldn’t stay. No company can afford to put on a public event and lose money. If they find a bigger audience in Durham, and public and private entities there are more willing to chip in on the cost of bringing an event like that to town, then I hope they find success.
Moogfest’s departure doesn’t condemn us any more than keeping it would have turned us into a high-wage paradise. But, for Asheville, I worry that this is another sign that we’re unsure of our destiny.
We know we want to be more than a tourism town — we aspire to more than serving wealthy outsiders. But if we don’t collectively step forward and decide how we want to get there, others will do it for us.
Email Executive Editor Josh Awtry at JAwtry@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM.
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