Friday, January 10, 2014
KXCI Tucson community radio station has decided to cancel Festival En El Barrio this year. KXCI and the Rialto Theatre started this elaborate annual music festival in the historic downtown art district four years ago. Calexico's Joey Burns notified the station that the band wouldn't be able to headline this year's show, according to KXCI general manager Randy Peterson. Peterson said that it was very unlikely they could organize the show in the next eight weeks, so they are planning on hosting the festival in 2015. "The Festival has always been well attended and very profitable," Peterson said.
From Peterson's press release:
We appreciate each of the thousands of concert goers who supported the first four festivals and we regret not being able to bring you another festival this spring. We'd like to acknowledge the tremendous support of the Rialto Theatre, Charlie from Stateside Presents and Calexico in making previous festivals a success.
Currently, the station is focusing its efforts on the Amplify KXCI Capital Campaign. The nonprofit radio station is trying raising $750,000 to extend its frequency to northwest side, renovate the historic headquarters in the Armory park neighborhood, and upgrade its tech.
KXCI has also launched an initiative to crowdfund $12,000 to update Studio 2A. Studio2A is one of the only ways for local musicians to perform live on FM radio. The studio has a "face for radio."
There's a lot of room for improvement:
Currently, ramshackle fixtures, exposed wires and folding chairs live along side the rickety mic stands and old headphones, with cables laid across a carpet that has seen better days (it was used when we got it!). The few performance videos we've shot - representing less than 2% of what we could have made - are done with borrowed gear in lighting that doesn't work other than to cover the weird paint job.
Click here to decide how your money is spent towards improving KXCI.
Tags: KXCI , Calexico , Festival En El Barrio , Video