Well, this was to be the turn around New Years Eve in Kansas City…
It fell on a Saturday and it was a balmy 65 degrees outside. Hope was in the air. Unfortunately, things were pretty quiet. I cased the city out and can now tell you that New Years Eve has officially become a secondary holiday.
That’s so damn sad.
And not just here, but across the nation. First the good news.
I had to go to Stanford’s first because both of our shows were 95% sold out. Thank god. Nikki Glaser, a former KU student, was the star and she drew very well all week. The Legends though is not a big night club area, so the overall attendance was just average. We left Stanford’s at 10:30 after I did the opening for our second show.
My little posse, wound through Westport, the Plaza and Power & Light jand Union Station ust to see what was up.
Everything we saw was just O.K. None of the party zones were dead but the Plaza was the slowest with no major nightclubs or events. Westport was above average and P & L had the biggest New Year’s Eve crowds with a paid to get into party. It was decent, but not crazy busy.
Union Station had a nice middle age crowd with some young adults but mostly it was 35 and up. It had a great live band and the neat thing was they shot fireworks off at midnight indoors. That was cool. Overall it was well done with decent food and a crowd of maybe 500 people.
However, I expected more. Last year I did the Hyatt and it had 2,500 plus, but Sheraton chose not to do it this year.
Overall the city steets looked like on a weeknight – in other words, it was slow.
I didn’t see that many cops out and NO DUI checkpoints. I was told there would be several but I saw zero. Maybe it just wasn’t worth it with it with the light traffic.
Again, it wasn’t dead, but it just wasn’t very busy out. WHY?
I was talking with my 42 year old agent in LA, Matt and he laid out his reasoning.
When we were growing up, New Year’s was a big deal for Baby Boomers and Gen Xers.
That’s not the case today. We had the TOP 40 countdown to see what the No. 1 song of the year was. Today there are so few hit songs nobody cares. We shot off fireworks, M-80’s and went nuts. Younger people today grow up blowing up stuff on the Internet and in video games.
Back in the 80’s and 90’s we had to take our date to a great restaurant, a party and then a hotel room – booze, weed and party time. People still party but not much at the really nice restaurants. It’s more like get a pizza, play Xbox, smoke a joint or two, rent a movie and you’re good.
People used to have huge parties at their homes with hot chicks and bartenders. There were a few of these on the Plaza this year, but not that many people wanted to spend the money and have their house trashed these days.
In 2000 they said the world would end, computers would crash and the stock market did.
It’s never been the same since.
To be honest, too many people just don’t care about THE NEW YEAR much anymore. Hope has been watered down, the economy is poor – there are just too many headaches – bills, work, kids, ex wives, urban crime, DUI check points. And we’ve all got lots of TV to watch.
There’s football on Sunday, so what more do we need? There are fewer if any real nightclubs anymore to have a big bash. Hotel parties are less personal, you hardly anyone there.
At midnight, 90 percent of the Union Station crowd started to leave. WHAT? What happened to the 2 AM crowd?
People go home because they’re afraid of cops, urban crime, light rain, and hey, they want to get up early and watch something on TV.
Yeah, the wild New Year’s Eves are over for most people.
Remember this one? "Hey, lets go to Las Vegas for New Year’s, it’ll be crazy!" Don’t hear that one much anymore.
It was 65 degrees, clear, Saturday. It was New Years Eve 2012 but most people just didn’t care.
I almost shed a tear.
I love the party of life and watching it fade away is a crime.
Due to huge demand…I’m back for one final post
Glaze..you’re right. Kc on new years eve is dead. My girl friend is an event planner…had 2 free tics to use before January
15…so we deadheaded to vegas for new years. Almost didn’t find a flight but got out on saturday and made it
to vegas for the nite. We stayed in the hotel the entire time. They shut down vegas on new years so it’s impossible
to get around because there’s no cabs. So we celebrated 2012 in the casino bar and to be honest was a blast.
New years is still big in vegas. Not what it once was but still a big attraction. Still it was great to get out of kc
for a couple of days and gamble. For me it was a bad trip. I stayed with 6 and 8 at the craps table and took
a beating early sunday morning but made a nice rally before we left. One thing about Wynn is don’t go there.
Breakfast was $95 for 2 people and as much as I love breakfast…i’ll still take my favorite combo breakfast at
winsteads for$6.25.
As for wilson…thanks for the note. Hope things work out for you and your wife on buying Jardines. I grew up in that
business and would never go back into it becaue of the hours and labor headaches. If you’ve not been in that
biz before its best to get with someone like glaze or nigro to see what a pain the biz can be.
You pulled out your ouiga (sp?) board and tried to analyze me. Obviously you are new to this site and have
never read my previous stories.
In 99 i was broke. Taxes. Made great money in biz but forget to file. It was then i realized I had to
do something. Got into the financial services business during the boom…opened up an office in
overland park and we made big money til my partner got a wholesale bank to buy my half of the company
out in March of 2008. We all know what happened in September…but I was lucky. Been lucky all my
life.
At the same time I developed a new marketing program that started in kc but was soon being used
in over 50 markets. I did great with it. It was simple and easy and still promote it in 10-12 markets today.
I did very very well during 2000 to 2009. But unlike many other business people…I realized that i needed to
“keep” my money. I invested in real estate in college towns and especially in columbia, missouri
where there are never any recessions. Bought my current house which is huge and way too big for me
today but which i can’t sell til the market comes back. I grew up working since I was 8 years old so I had
great work ethics but only until I opened my own business in 1988 did i realize how to really make money.
I’m starting a new venture that has a huge upside and which i got investors/clients to expand rapidly.
But just like you i realized that many of the friends you make during your life are there to “hang on”.
They think they can borrow money from you and not pay it back because “you have plenty”. I’ve had my
ups and down in life but realized that friends come and go…family sticks around.
Having been broke in my life…i realized that the best times i had were when i was broke. Starting my company,
I had no money so we’d go to the bars that had happy hours where you’d buy a drink and get a free meal
or buffet. There was a different one every night we’d go to..and they had incredible food.
When i was down…me and 4 friend drove to vegas. I lost all my money the first night (playing 6 and 8)
and we all survived 2 days in vegas on the coupon books you get on the strip with $1 margaritas and
99 cents hot dogs. But we had a ball. I remember those days well and they were a blast.
I’ve got more stories than glaze..but its 2012 and I’m back concentrating on doing what I do best.
Sound like you’ve got everything together…i enjoy your posts…but things got out of hand. It looks like
hearne has gotten the site quieted down (which it needed).
So happy new year…as they say on the northeast end “salud” and everyone take care.
Signing off again…harley.
Downtown Was Kinda Dead
Haven’t moved yet, but yeah it was quiet. Too old for Power and Light, heard it was busy though.
Craig We Was Busy
Good crowd early, but they left after midnight. I made nice cash money. Where you been? Guess I am never gonna see that new car, huh. Why. I’m good. I remember our New years a couple years ago at that hotel downtown. You loved me back then. We had a nice time, I miss you Craig. Happy New Years.
KC Rocked You Missed It Glazer
Power and Light was packed, great time, where were you?
New Years Isn’t Dead KC Is
Was in Chicago, jumping. KC is just low energy for some reason. Likely due to Chiefs, Royals and KU.
Rick returns to a Glazer story…briefly
Glazer I hope after three years of misses one of your New Year resolutions is not to make any more Chief’s predictions. What did you say 4 wins. Or was it 2? Worse team ever you said that right? Another year another bad guess Mr Sports Man. Be happy though. We showed Steven Tyler’s man boobs on TMZ and at least yours aren’t bad as that. Peace and Love in 2012