LYNN ― Sometimes a Pitbull concert is not just a Pitbull concert, and nobody knows that better than James Marsh.
The city’s director of community development ― a self-professed fan of ’80s music ― admitted he didn’t think the Lynn Auditorium was capable of booking the multiplatinum Latin hip-hop artist, and then it just sort of happened.
“I casually asked about it, almost jokingly, and the agent said, ‘why don’t you put an offer in?'” he said. “It’s not too often you’ll see a big mainstream act like Pitbull go to a smaller theater, but sometimes they like to play to smaller audiences. If you bang on the door enough, once in a while you can pick one up.”
However, what’ll be a quiet affair for Mr. Worldwide is going to be a massive night for the city of Lynn ― and could potentially be the start of something big for the Auditorium.
“(People come to shows) not just Marblehead, Swampscott, Lynnfield, Saugus ― It’s all of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire,” Marsh explained. “But we get people from all over. I remember looking at data on ticket sales, where people are coming from, and we saw one woman who was from somewhere in Japan.”
Previously, the Auditorium’s biggest acts were classic-rock stalwarts like Meatloaf, Foreigner, and Alice Cooper. These genre standbys have caused a run on ticket sales in the past, and they pulled their audience from far and wide (the Japanese concertgoer was in Lynn to see Cheap Trick). Still, Marsh said, it’s nothing compared to Pitbull.
“We sold out in three or four days (but) we could have sold out within hours,” he said. “I think we did 1,500 (tickets) at first, out of 2,000.”
“The fastest before that was Alice Cooper ― I think he did 900 in one day.”
The momentum Pitbull has brought with him is already paying off. Soon after his show was announced, the Auditorium revealed that 2000s-era rapper Nelly would be coming to the city in May ― another genre departure for the venue, but not an unwelcome one.
“We took a shot on Pitbull, who’s more current, and with Nelly,” Marsh said. “We’re doing well with Nelly. I think we are going to start going in that direction more. Being a government-run facility, we have the ability to branch out more.”
Branching out seems to be Marsh’s specialty. The roster of artists soon to visit the Auditorium is perhaps at its most diverse; furthermore, Marsh’s longtime goal of bringing “a little bit of everything” to the Auditorium has made space for him to take risks in some of his bookings, even in an unstable time for the concert industry. Though live music has been slow to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Auditorium’s status as a municipally-owned theater has helped it weather the storm in the way private venues could not.
“The Wang, The TD Garden, these venues are standalone theaters that have a ton of operating costs to begin with, plus a ton of staff that they may have had to lay off or cut back on. As part of City Hall, we just shut the doors and waited it out,” Marsh explained. “I don’t have a ton of staff, most of the people I hire (for specific shows), and I only really have one or two salaried positions.”
Still, he added, “All those people I hired ― the bartenders, stage labor, technical people, lights and a sound, ushers, ticket takers, security ― the venue itself may have not hurt them, but those people did feel the pain.”
After funding boosts from the Small Business Administration and the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, bouncing back for the Auditorium looks less like starting from scratch and more like regaining its foothold. Now, Marsh and his team have the opportunity to redouble their efforts in searching for new and ingenious acts.
In addition to Nelly, virtuoso Mexican guitarists Rodrigo y Gabriela, Latin Grammy winner Pedro Capo, Pakistani singer and Bollywood composer Atif Aslam, legendary soul/funk frontwoman Chaka Khan, and NPR podcast host Peter Sagal join a lineup of YouTubers, illusionists, psychic mediums, tribute bands and a ventriloquist, all slated for the coming months. All of this is on top of the community dance recitals, graduations, and local spelling bees that Marsh assures the Auditorium will “always have.”
The goal of all of this eclecticism, he says, is not to turn the Auditorium into the greatest venue of all time. His aspiration is simply to be an asset to the city. Whatever the damage COVID did to the city’s businesses and nightlife, Marsh envisions the Auditorium as an active agent in its revitalization.
“It’s not just an auditorium: Part of it is to bring 2,000 people, on any given night, into downtown Lynn and the economic spinoff to all those businesses,” he said. “I have experienced this so many times when people come to Lynn for the first time and then walk out and see where they are and what Lynn has to offer. It’s amazing.”
Still, Marsh is a pragmatist. One Pitbull concert will not turn the Auditorium into Madison Square Garden, nor Lynn into downtown Manhattan. He recalled a conversation with a former promoter for the Newport Folk Festival, who told him:
“‘Jamie, just make sure you don’t go down that road until you have the capacity downtown for nightlife, for that age group, for that genre because they’ll come once and then they’ll hightail it back to Boston.'”
“In terms of those restaurants, those eclectic places that are around Cambridge, Harvard Square and down on Lansdowne Street, (Lynn is) just not there yet,” he admitted. “But we’re getting there … People’s perceptions change when they come in to see a concert.”
