How the Queen Mary became a mini music festival hot spot in 2018
During its three decades at sea, the Queen Mary made 1,001 transatlantic crossings before it was permanently moored in Long Beach in 1967.
But there was no quiet, laid-back retirement ahead for the vessel.
Since its arrival more than 50 years ago, the ship has been a busy events venue and hotel, hosting dozens of concerts through the years as well as annual events such as Christmas-themed happenings and Dark Harbor during Halloween.
And now things have stepped up even more thanks to a year-old partnership with concert promoter Goldenvoice. The ship has sailed into another phase of its retirement, becoming a musical hot spot that held seven multi-act shows in 2018, attracting a new generation of fans to the 82-year-old ocean-liner.
“I think it’s been more successful than we imagined,” said Paul Billings, vice president and general manager of Goldenvoice.
“I think you would be hard pressed to find any location that has done seven mini-festivals anywhere,” he added.
A giant hops on board
Los Angeles-based Goldenvoice is responsible for festivals around the country, including the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Stagecoach Country Music Festival, which attract hundreds of thousands of people to Indio in April. It also operates Los Angeles venues such as the Fonda Theatre, El Rey Theatre and the Shrine Auditorium. The company, which is part of live entertainment behemoth AEG, promotes more than 1,400 concerts a year in California, Nevada, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii and Canada.
In late 2017, Goldenvoice made musical waves in Long Beach when it announced that it was teaming up with Urban Commons, the Queen Mary’s leaseholder, to exclusively put on concerts at the ship’s 15,000-person-capacity Waterfront Park.
Previously, concerts there were produced by the ship as well as a variety of promoters, including Goldenvoice.
No major concerts have been held on board the 4,000-person capacity ship, which has recently undergone the first of many crucial multimillion-dollar repairs that may stretch for years. But with the ship serving as a majestic background, Goldenvoice’s seven mini music festivals have included three new events and four returning shows.
“As we started putting these shows on sale, we quickly realized that there was market demand for these shows in the Long Beach and O.C. area. Several of these sold out the day we put them on sale,” Billings said.
All but one of the concerts, November’s Tropicália Music and Taco Festival, sold out in 2018.
Two other concerts previously produced by the Queen Mary, the Shipkicker Country Music Festivaland an alt-rock event called Rock the Queen, did not return in 2018.
While there wasn’t much of a difference in the number of music shows put on at the ship, there’s been a big difference culturally.
The partnership has put the Queen Mary at the center of Southern California’s music scene with concerts that mix relevant up and coming artists such as 18-year-old Baltimore rapper Jayy Grams and East Los Angeles-based Latin punk act Thee Commons with well-established acts including Snoop Dogg, Morrissey and cumbia stars Los Ángeles Azules.
“Obviously Goldenvoice is a market leader in what they do, they have tremendous success in this music festival arena. There is a growing culture of music festival followers and if we can build a theme around that and this iconic ship, create more buzz around the ship, have more people present at the ship…we’re thrilled,” said Salvatore Takoushian, president and chief financial officer for Urban Commons.
Musical queen
While he didn’t provide specific figures, Takoushian noted that occupancy at the ship’s 346-room hotel is considerably higher during weekend concert events while its onboard bars and restaurants are also busier with people who may otherwise have never come to the vessel.
“The people that attend these concerts, they tend to be younger…The people that know the ship tend to be of a different generation but these concerts are bringing other people — people that may not know it’s long history but still get to appreciate its majesty,” Takoushian said.
The new concerts Goldenvoice brought on board for 2018 trended toward a younger demographic interested in hip-hop and Latin shows.
They included the Smokers Club Festival in April headlined by Wiz Khalifa and Kid Cudi; Smokin’ Grooves, an R&B heavy show held in June topped by the Roots and Erykah Badu; and the Smoke Me Out y Los Reyes Del Corrido, another sell-out show that mixed the sounds of young modern regional Mexican bands with marijuana culture.
The concert promoter also brought existing shows back to the ship, including the One Love Cali Reggae Fest in February; Summertime in the LBC, headlined by Snoop Dogg. in July; the Alt 98.7 FM Summer Camp in August; and the Tropicália Music and Taco Festival, headlined by Morrissey in November.
The returning multi-genre Tropicália was the final big show of the year at the ship for Goldenvoice and the only one in the 2018 bunch that wasn’t a complete sell-out with just a few of the more expensive VIP tickets and packages still available on the concert website as the music began.
“I think the capacity is nice. We’re bringing big names at a small capacity. It’s a more intimate show than you’ll get if you go to a major festival,” Billings said, explaining some of the success behind the events.
Location, location, location
In addition to a comfortable crowd size that gives the venue a noticeably less crowded feel, especially during multi-stage shows, the appeal of the ship as a concert spot also comes down to location.
Sitting on 65 acres of waterfront property with the downtown skyline visible across the water, the Queen Mary and its adjacent events park feel separate from downtown Long Beach while still being just minutes from the major city, therefore attracting local crowds that don’t have to drive hours for a music festival.
Plus, there’s the backdrop.
“I think any time we can put a stage next to the water, there’s just something special about that immediately. You’re sitting there overlooking downtown Long Beach, the boats come up and just hang out there; the weather is usually pretty good overall,” said Billings, who grew up in Long Beach and Los Alamitos.
Sailing through the crowd
These sold-out concerts have happened amid a busy local music festival scene that includes dozens of shows throughout the year.
Besides Coachella and Stagecoach, there have been dozens of other music festivals in Southern California this year, including Arroyo Seco in Pasadena, ComplexCon and Music Tastes Good in Long Beach, Kaaboo in Del Mar, Head in the Clouds at the Los Angeles State Historic Park, Desert Daze in Perris, the Musink Tattoo Convention & Music Festival in Costa Mesa and others.
But even in a saturated market, industry experts are not surprised the Queen Mary has become a popular venue.
Steven Schmader, president and CEO of the International Festivals and Events Association, which advocates for and represents the global festival and events industry, said that with so many music festivals out there events have to do something to stand out.
“The more unique settings you can have things in, I think that draws people in,” he said.
For example, Coachella pretty much builds a village with bars and restaurants, a Ferris wheel, art sculptures and lounges out in the desert while Arroyo Seco weaves Pasadena’s history into the event.
In Long Beach, the Queen Mary itself is already a built-in, or in this case, moored-in attraction, he noted.
“It’s a real natural place to put something with the Queen Mary sitting in the background. I think that’s something that makes its own statement,” Schmader said.
Surprises ahead
And by all accounts, the music is set to continue next year.
Goldenvoice already announced the first show of 2019, the returning One Love Cali Reggae Fest, which expands from two to three days in February and includes more than 50 acts, including Rebelution, Slightly Stoopid and Sublime with Rome.
So far it’s the only festival confirmed to return next year and there could be some changes ahead since Billings said Goldenvoice doesn’t want to be pigeonholed by genres or even expectations that certain shows will return in 2019.
“Some of these will be coming back for next year and then we have new things we’re working on that we haven’t announced yet – different genres we want to bring there that we didn’t hit this year. I think there’s definitely genres open as far as rock goes, electronica, that aren’t hit on that (2018) list,” Billings said.
Likewise, Takoushian of Urban Commons hopes Goldenvoice keeps on turning the volume up when it comes to mini-festivals at the ship.
“We believe we are at the front end of something very significant,” he said.
“I think we’re going into the second year of this partnership and if it continues to be as successful as it’s been in 2018 we look forward to it in the years to come,” he added.