Two hours before the tunes, parking vendors hustle out their $7 placards, TRAX trains balloon with more kids than commuters and brigades of bicycles slither through downtown toward Pioneer Park. By 5:15 p.m., hundreds of teens and twentysomethings — some shirtless, some schlepping water jugs — cling to a stage scorched by 98-degree heat. Hundreds more stake out the shade of trees.
Across the street, a minivan from Provo pours out five giggling BYU students. “I’ve never been here before, but any place where Zooey Deschanel is ... ,” Whitney Olsen squeals about the actress-turned-crooner from She & Him. “Especially for a free show.”
“This is the last one?” friend Megan Harris learns of Thursday’s Twilight Concert Series finale. “What a tragedy.”
Inside, Hacky Sacks and Frisbees fly. Parents wearing black Chuck Taylors chase their toddlers on the grass. Music fans insist arriving three hours before the headliner is worth it. “It is every time,” Layton’s Adam Cromer says. “I came to Modest Mouse. It was crazy but fun.”
Crazy but fun — and fine — could define the concert series’ 2010 segue from the Gallivan Center to Pioneer Park. No one was sure if the homeless and drugs wouldn’t kill the vibe. If the venue wouldn’t bomb.
Two months later, the concert numbers tilt every chart. Attendance doubled to 30,000 — 40,000-plus for Modest Mouse in week one. Food vendors saw seemingly endless lines. Cops say the eight gigs were mainly problem-free. And most pleasing for Salt Lake City merchants: Twilight kept their cash registers singing.
Restaurants hugging the park and along Broadway extended their hours to handle the crowds. Nearby bars, and many farther away, thrived each Thursday from late afternoon until last call. And overall street life defied downtown’s sleepy reputation.
Nearly each week, a who’s who of city power brokers attended the shows.“It represents kind of a tipping point,” says David Everitt, Mayor Ralph Becker’s chief of staff. “I couldn’t be happier.”
Scott Beck, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau, compares Twilight’s impact to the LDS Church’s $1.5 billion City Creek Center straddling Main Street.
“This will be as transformational as that is for this side of town,” Beck says. He also argues the throngs topping 30,000 are impossible not to notice for conventioneers, including this week’s bunch from Usana. “Six thousand people now think Salt Lake is a lot cooler than they thought.”
Pedaling his two-wheeler from the Avenues for the July 8 Modest Mouse show, Becker couldn’t believe the city’s pulse — the bloated bike lanes, sidewalk energy and phalanx of faces cramming bars and eateries.
“It was just like the Olympics,” the mayor raves. “This is twice the size of a Jazz game. Think about what a Jazz game does for downtown.”
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“This one feels more like a Central Park show where there’s trees,” says Salt Lake City’s Ashley Babbitt. “The stage is nice. It’s less claustrophobic.”
The new vision for Salt Lake City encompasses ideas large and small, bold and restrained - for shaping downtown's future. 