Brian also ignores that $100 spent would arguably go to our local business owners, which is the better benefit

Bob Yancy said:

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Brian have you ever taken your family to a fireworks show or free concert? A parade? Christmas in the Park? Not everything is about ROI, and as I've predicated on this thread we are likely to receive a private sector proposal for WPC. But even if we don't, if you've got a public sector asset with a replacement cost of $40m that you're not deriving maximum utility from, you don't think it warrants a modest, relatively speaking, investment to maintain and enhance as the years go by?

If it was all about ROI we wouldn't have a single park in the city. We wouldn't have a library, New York wouldn't have a Central Park, San Antone wouldn't have the Riverwalk. I'm as capitalist as anyone but there is such a thing as the public good, brother.

Respectfully

Yancy '95

---

I outlined my opinions in this in my previous post. In this case specifically, making all these upgrades to Wolf Pen Creek Park neither creates a community asset if it's just going to be effectively locked up most of the time, and it's not going to draw huge crowds as the City wishes that it would. (Besides, the whole area is too ill-equipped to handle mass paid parking).

Mr. Yancy--you have been in this community for a very long time. I was working on something for my website (an update to the Whataburger Dominik Drive page) and found the article for its fire in 1996 and I noticed a familiar name in the article. It would suggest that you of all people would know first-hand of all the things that the City of College Station had an idea for but overspent on over the years, from various attempts to remake Northgate, entertaining ideas for whatever "districts" have come and gone, and questionable marketing attempts. You have stated in the past that you were opposed or neutral to some of these ideas, is this not another example of "CoCS overspending and wishing they were Austin or San Antonio"?

I figured that kind of wealth transfer mindset is gnarlier than most are willing to go.

But people have different ideas of what is acceptable government behavior

You might be able convince council to take money from taxpayers' pockets for the opportunity for somebody to get an additional $100 in sales for their lemonade stand. I would argue:

• taking from Peter to pay Paul is a serious overstep of what most people think government should do. It is bad guy stuff.
• Need to account for costs to getting that revenue (labor, materials, taxes, etc.)
• There should probably be an additional discount since it's speculative

But it might be a worthwhile exercise if you and council want to throw it in. How much do you think is appropriate to take from taxpayers in order for a local business to get an additional $100 in revenue?

I would be curious how you come up with it

Good night nurse! I'm joining this convo late.


I have done many a show at WPC over the years. I was there on stage when Vanilla Ice got the guy to jump in the moat. I was brought in at the EXTREME last minute for a Fabulous Thunderbirds show that had a turd-floater come down between soundcheck and show. We set up in a super-hurry and still pulled off the show. I've done so many shows there.

There are a couple of MAJOR flaws in the WPC complex that have to be addessed if you want anybody decent to play here......

• The way to get to the loading dock is to back down a curved downhill run and hit a tiny metal dock that can only fit one truck at a time. This is not only super difficult, it also leaves the truck angled back-door-down meaning all the stuff just falls out of the truck onto that pathetic dock so you have to have multiple people in the truck holding back thousands of pounds of expensive gear that rolls.

• You will have to have a flat, large loading area that can support both bus and trailer tours and Semi trucks with trailers. Bonus points if they can go down forward, have room to back into a dock, and pull out forward. And still leave room for multiple trucks and busses all parked there for the duration of the show.

• You have to have a covered loading area. Rain ruins more shows at outdoor venues than anything. If there's no shelter from the rain you are sunk.

• You have to have an easier and more secure way to walk from FOH to the stage. It's a long hike as it is, and running the cabling is also a mess. The underground pipe never works. They are always full of water and no one will use that. So you run miles of cabling around the outside, back over to the middle, and up the hill. Its a pain and many groups won't even have enough cable to make that run.

• You have to have ironclad flood control.

• You have to have a roof that is accessible, is rated to carry loads, and extends far out over the front edge of the stage. You can't light up the talent unless you can get lights way out in front of them. Also the way the roof is currently you get rain on half the stage if there's even a light breeze.

• It would be great if you had air conditioned space right behind the stage for both dressing rooms and production space. Nobody wants to walk up the hill, outside of the "secure space" to go to the green room as it is. It's too far, and too public to be a "backstage" area. If you have dedicated bus parking behind the stage this is less of an issue. Bands are happy to stay on their bus, but you'll want shore power for them to prevent the generators from running the whole time.

• You need more hidden side-stage area. The open seashell design currently means that all of us techs and all of our mountains of gear are just right out there on the stage. Nobody wants this. Having several staggered walls that block the sight lines to the side stage areas is a great option.

• Work lights. After the show we will be there for hours rolling up cable and loading the truck on that miserable dock. It would be nice if we could see something. It would be safer too.

I have done this stuff for over thirty years. I've toured, done local production, clubs, theaters, freelance, and just about anything else you can think of. I am currently the "tech director" at a large church. If there are some questions you have about how to make it more friendly to the bands and production crews I'd be happy to chat about it. HighSPL [at) gee male (dot] com

EMY92 said:

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johnnyblaze36 said:

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Hornbeck said:

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I think the point several are trying to make is that, even with all this, we're not going to see a huge uptick in live entertainment.

If a bunch of money is spent, and we continue to get 1-2 acts a year apart from the city's cover band palooza in the summer along with the BYX Jesusfest, we're not going to be better off.

---

But why is that? I've seen some good acts in the past year in downtown Waco in their little square (Lukas Nelson, Band of Horses, REK).

Why can Waco have nice things regularly but we can't? They get a diverse range of quality acts too at the Backyard all the time.

I'd think a rendering like Bob provided in this thread could be a nice draw, or at least I'd hope.

---

It all started 30+ years ago when someone decided to open a restaurant in an old warehouse along the river, very close to the Hilton. Buzzard Billy's was a tremendous hit. Then, a developer bought the old warehouse across from the Hilton and developed that into shops and restaurants. Prior to this, that area of Waco was not a good place to be after dark. In the mid 90s, I worked for a company HQ'd out of the Chicago area. One of the VPs came down, we warned him to avoid the Hilton, but he said he was from Chicago and could take care of himself, that didn't stop the bullet that hit him while in the Hilton parking lot.

With the success of the restaurants and shops, other developers starting renovating other old locations, and some nice apartments were created in some of the old building.

Then, Chip & Joanna happened. They renovated "The Silos" and now have the largest tourist attraction in the state of Texas. More than 50,000 people per week come from out of town to visit the Silos.

Demand for space in that area is now high, the increase in property taxes has killed many struggling businesses, but opened the locations for people looking for space for their venture.

The City of Waco really wasn't involved, they just were not an impediment.

---

Hahaha.

I was there 30 years ago. the CITY OF WACO was PRODUCING THEIR OWN CONCERTS Right there in front of the suspension bridge before all of that downtown revitalization happened. I worked those shows on the PA system that the city owned. At the time I worked at the Hippodrome and at the Ferrel Center where we had many musical guests along with the city doing a summer concert series and typically a laser and fireworks show in front of the Hilton on University-Parks drive.

I later worked at Burger and Blues (as the sound guy) from the day they opened until the day they closed. Burgers and Blues was owned by the guy who bought and renovated that whole warehouse. That happened much later and was kind of the second phase of the downtown revitalization.


Waco has a music scene because they support a music scene.

Tailgate88 said:

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ZoneClubber said:

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I'm quite certain Koe Wetzel, Cody Johnson, Shane Smith and Treaty Oak Revival (as examples ) all had capacity crowds at Wolf Pen going back 5 years to recently. This is a clear indication of top names and demand. With the significant investment a 3rd party may spend on upgrades they would certainly want to book top talent. Those scoffing at the potential haven't been to these concerts

---

Back when the Starlight Music concerts had higher end bands, they were a lot more well-attended. As someone mentioned above, Eddie Money was great, Cowboy Mouth was another great show. It's been over a decade so I don't remember all the artists, but we used to go to 2-3 shows a year and the hill was nearly always full.

Note - I'm not saying the city should spend more money on these concerts. I'm saying, if the private sector wants to invest in more popular (and yes, more expensive) artists, it will certainly bring out a larger crowd. It's really a nice venue, and if they make some of these renovations, I suspect it will be even more popular.

---

Now we only get Eddie Money Tribute acts.


Bring in real acts and people will come.

Bob Yancy said:

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Wvpd0707 said:

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Back in the mid to late 90's there was an event called Duck Fest (or something like that). The event was held at Wolf Pen. It was an all day event with a concert in the evening. There were 3 bands I can't recall the first band but the second band was 38 Special and the head liner was Willie Nelson. The place was packed. Even had VIP viewing/seating near the stage. I believe if the amphitheater can be upgraded we could draw some nice acts similar to the Waco venue.

---

I vaguely remember that. I thought back then that despite the somewhat embarrassing start to the venue (the deluge of rain and resulting silt deposits) that we had some big time shows and a sea of people. Why was that momentum lost? Can it be reclaimed? I think so.

Respectfully

Yancy '95

---

Its my understanding that no promoters wanted to work with the city on bringing shows there. The city wanted to control ticket sales and force promoters to use city workers as gate attendants and other jobs. Promoters already have crews to handle these things and the city crew was too expensive, and the promoter wouldn't see the money until the city was done counting it.

Just charge a rental fee and have rules for the use of, and penalties for damages and other problems. This is how concert promoters want to to business.





I know Ziegfest wanted to use WPC (back in the early 2000's) but they couldn't come to an agreement so it ended up at Lake Bryan and that festival was a massive hit.

maroon barchetta said:

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We still want Aeromyth!!!!

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The only acceptable tribute act would be Mini Kiss.

Tim Weaver said:

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maroon barchetta said:

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We still want Aeromyth!!!!

---

The only acceptable tribute act would be Mini Kiss.

---

I would go.

The ramp/loading/backing issue is one I have witnessed. Saw it with the Def Leggend/Infinite Journey/Tres Hombres show, and a couple of times with the CS high school and middle school bands shows.

It's not a good setup at all.

The green room and dressing room situation is also like you described, too far from the stage. And I walked in there looking for a director and there was nobody there, just a lot of unsecured personal items that the public could walk in an access.

Macy's will seem like a cheap expenditure compared to what it will take to make this location a venue that attracts name acts.

Bold thought--it's clear the City wants a new outdoor theater, but is Wolf Pen Creek really the right place for it? If you have to fill in everything with concrete, build a bunch of new infrastructure, and still can't address things like backroom space, loading docks, flooding, or parking, is it even worth remaking the WPC Park amphitheater in your image? Why not just...find a new location?

And if that's settled with, could there be a good Wolf Pen Creek Park redevelopment without an amphitheater?

Tim Weaver said:

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Good night nurse! I'm joining this convo late.


I have done many a show at WPC over the years. I was there on stage when Vanilla Ice got the guy to jump in the moat. I was brought in at the EXTREME last minute for a Fabulous Thunderbirds show that had a turd-floater come down between soundcheck and show. We set up in a super-hurry and still pulled off the show. I've done so many shows there.

There are a couple of MAJOR flaws in the WPC complex that have to be addessed if you want anybody decent to play here......

• The way to get to the loading dock is to back down a curved downhill run and hit a tiny metal dock that can only fit one truck at a time. This is not only super difficult, it also leaves the truck angled back-door-down meaning all the stuff just falls out of the truck onto that pathetic dock so you have to have multiple people in the truck holding back thousands of pounds of expensive gear that rolls.

• You will have to have a flat, large loading area that can support both bus and trailer tours and Semi trucks with trailers. Bonus points if they can go down forward, have room to back into a dock, and pull out forward. And still leave room for multiple trucks and busses all parked there for the duration of the show.

• You have to have a covered loading area. Rain ruins more shows at outdoor venues than anything. If there's no shelter from the rain you are sunk.

• You have to have an easier and more secure way to walk from FOH to the stage. It's a long hike as it is, and running the cabling is also a mess. The underground pipe never works. They are always full of water and no one will use that. So you run miles of cabling around the outside, back over to the middle, and up the hill. Its a pain and many groups won't even have enough cable to make that run.

• You have to have ironclad flood control.

• You have to have a roof that is accessible, is rated to carry loads, and extends far out over the front edge of the stage. You can't light up the talent unless you can get lights way out in front of them. Also the way the roof is currently you get rain on half the stage if there's even a light breeze.

• It would be great if you had air conditioned space right behind the stage for both dressing rooms and production space. Nobody wants to walk up the hill, outside of the "secure space" to go to the green room as it is. It's too far, and too public to be a "backstage" area. If you have dedicated bus parking behind the stage this is less of an issue. Bands are happy to stay on their bus, but you'll want shore power for them to prevent the generators from running the whole time.

• You need more hidden side-stage area. The open seashell design currently means that all of us techs and all of our mountains of gear are just right out there on the stage. Nobody wants this. Having several staggered walls that block the sight lines to the side stage areas is a great option.

• Work lights. After the show we will be there for hours rolling up cable and loading the truck on that miserable dock. It would be nice if we could see something. It would be safer too.

I have done this stuff for over thirty years. I've toured, done local production, clubs, theaters, freelance, and just about anything else you can think of. I am currently the "tech director" at a large church. If there are some questions you have about how to make it more friendly to the bands and production crews I'd be happy to chat about it. HighSPL [at) gee male (dot] com

---

Practical experience and logic.
I hope our decision makers will listen to what Mr. Weaver has to say.
In our fine community we have experienced and competent individuals on every subject you can imagine.
Why not take advantage of this great resource?

Knowing how things go around here, it will probably be a committee selected from local PACs that shall not be named and/or their friends who know nothing about things like this.

Then, when it flops catastrophically, they go, "Wow! I just don't know how that happened…"

See the pool fiasco in Bryan or the ballparks on the dump land with no soil survey in CS…..

Hornbeck said:

---

Knowing how things go around here, it will probably be a committee selected from local PACs that shall not be named and/or their friends who know nothing about things like this.

Then, when it flops catastrophically, they go, "Wow! I just don't know how that happened…"

See the pool fiasco in Bryan or the ballparks on the dump land with no soil survey in CS…..

---

I so appreciate Councilman Yancy coming through the community for input like he does. I hope he can be successful in his actions.
Thank you Mr. Yancy for your service to our community.
Please continue to fight the good fight.

Weaver is spot on in his posts, I bet we probably know each other or have crossed paths since I have done some of the same stuff around town here since 92. At the very least we probably have a bunch of common friends.

The bottom line is this facility was never built to support larger shows. It just wasn't. As he mentioned it's hard to load in and out, has no real space for talent and their support crews, all of his comments are spot on.

I, with all due respect, think the error Yancy and others have in perspective is that they are viewing WPC as this great asset that is being underutilized for a live music venue. In actuality it is not a great asset, it is a poorly designed mire, that cannot be a great, or even good live music venue without significant upgrades/redesign or a wrecking ball and do-over, with substantial cost to the taxpayers of College Station and/or Brazos County.

So the questions need to be-

• #1 is there demand for this type of venue?
• #2 enough so that private dollars will fund it instead of hard working, taxpaying citizens
• #3 can we trust CoCS not to totally screw up the public/private lease and/or agreements?
• #4 is this the will of the people not just a dream of a few on council/city staff

Just build something at northgate, one of the midtowns, or Santa's Village. Bob already hinted at this before. Get one of the Nashville venue bars down here and be done with it.

Tim Weaver said:

---

EliteElectric said:

---

Weaver is spot on in his posts, I bet we probably know each other or have crossed paths since I have done some of the same stuff around town here since 92. At the very least we probably have a bunch of common friends.

The bottom line is this facility was never built to support larger shows. It just wasn't. As he mentioned it's hard to load in and out, has no real space for talent and their support crews, all of his comments are spot on.

I, with all due respect, think the error Yancy and others have in perspective is that they are viewing WPC as this great asset that is being underutilized for a live music venue. In actuality it is not a great asset, it is a poorly designed mire, that cannot be a great, or even good live music venue without significant upgrades/redesign or a wrecking ball and do-over, with substantial cost to the taxpayers of College Station and/or Brazos County.

So the questions need to be-

• #1 is there demand for this type of venue?
• #2 enough so that private dollars will fund it instead of hard working, taxpaying citizens
• #3 can we trust CoCS not to totally screw up the public/private lease and/or agreements?
• #4 is this the will of the people not just a dream of a few on council/city staff

---

I think we have. I worked for Vince in the 90's, and still do gigs with him occasionally. In the 2000's I worked at Rudder. After that, touring and freelancing.

We use Elite at my current job. BR is our guy that I talk to and he does a dang fine job!

---

Ah I know who you are now! Small world Vince used to call me to do FOH for national acts back in the day.


****ETA**** Thanks for your business!!!

Tim Weaver said:

---

Good night nurse! I'm joining this convo late.


I have done many a show at WPC over the years. I was there on stage when Vanilla Ice got the guy to jump in the moat. I was brought in at the EXTREME last minute for a Fabulous Thunderbirds show that had a turd-floater come down between soundcheck and show. We set up in a super-hurry and still pulled off the show. I've done so many shows there.

There are a couple of MAJOR flaws in the WPC complex that have to be addessed if you want anybody decent to play here......

• The way to get to the loading dock is to back down a curved downhill run and hit a tiny metal dock that can only fit one truck at a time. This is not only super difficult, it also leaves the truck angled back-door-down meaning all the stuff just falls out of the truck onto that pathetic dock so you have to have multiple people in the truck holding back thousands of pounds of expensive gear that rolls.

• You will have to have a flat, large loading area that can support both bus and trailer tours and Semi trucks with trailers. Bonus points if they can go down forward, have room to back into a dock, and pull out forward. And still leave room for multiple trucks and busses all parked there for the duration of the show.

• You have to have a covered loading area. Rain ruins more shows at outdoor venues than anything. If there's no shelter from the rain you are sunk.

• You have to have an easier and more secure way to walk from FOH to the stage. It's a long hike as it is, and running the cabling is also a mess. The underground pipe never works. They are always full of water and no one will use that. So you run miles of cabling around the outside, back over to the middle, and up the hill. Its a pain and many groups won't even have enough cable to make that run.

• You have to have ironclad flood control.

• You have to have a roof that is accessible, is rated to carry loads, and extends far out over the front edge of the stage. You can't light up the talent unless you can get lights way out in front of them. Also the way the roof is currently you get rain on half the stage if there's even a light breeze.

• It would be great if you had air conditioned space right behind the stage for both dressing rooms and production space. Nobody wants to walk up the hill, outside of the "secure space" to go to the green room as it is. It's too far, and too public to be a "backstage" area. If you have dedicated bus parking behind the stage this is less of an issue. Bands are happy to stay on their bus, but you'll want shore power for them to prevent the generators from running the whole time.

• You need more hidden side-stage area. The open seashell design currently means that all of us techs and all of our mountains of gear are just right out there on the stage. Nobody wants this. Having several staggered walls that block the sight lines to the side stage areas is a great option.

• Work lights. After the show we will be there for hours rolling up cable and loading the truck on that miserable dock. It would be nice if we could see something. It would be safer too.

I have done this stuff for over thirty years. I've toured, done local production, clubs, theaters, freelance, and just about anything else you can think of. I am currently the "tech director" at a large church. If there are some questions you have about how to make it more friendly to the bands and production crews I'd be happy to chat about it. HighSPL [at) gee male (dot] com

---

Just wow. A thousand times thank you. Fantastic feedback!

Respectfully & Appreciatively

Yancy '95

"I am a capitalist" and "the public good". If true, then let an entrepreneur take over WPC or one would be building a new venue to make a profit. I don't want a penny of my tax dollars spent on any of this. Mr. Yancy, you yourself have mentioned decisions made by previous councils, not you. Your replacement in the future can take any project and jack up the spending. Please quit spending my money.

hopeandrealchange said:

---

Hornbeck said:

---

Knowing how things go around here, it will probably be a committee selected from local PACs that shall not be named and/or their friends who know nothing about things like this.

Then, when it flops catastrophically, they go, "Wow! I just don't know how that happened…"

See the pool fiasco in Bryan or the ballparks on the dump land with no soil survey in CS…..

---

I so appreciate Councilman Yancy coming through the community for input like he does. I hope he can be successful in his actions.
Thank you Mr. Yancy for your service to our community.
Please continue to fight the good fight.

---

I appreciate the job that Bob does as well. Make no mistake, I think if it were just him running things, I'd have a lot more faith in things getting done right, and actually benefitting us.

Other folks up there, not so much.

College Station taxes are already a beating.

I wonder if there is just an army of city planners that exit the school and never leave and just run wild combining their schoolbook theories with other people's money.

Wvpd0707 said:

---

Back in the mid to late 90's there was an event called Duck Fest (or something like that). The event was held at Wolf Pen. It was an all day event with a concert in the evening. There were 3 bands I can't recall the first band but the second band was 38 Special and the head liner was Willie Nelson. The place was packed. Even had VIP viewing/seating near the stage. I believe if the amphitheater can be upgraded we could draw some nice acts similar to the Waco venue.

---

I was there while doing my six year plan from 1996-2002. If this town could get someone of Willie Nelson's stature back then, surely we could repeat that success with an upgraded venue just as you suggest.

The fact that there is no regular live music in town is the second most embarrassing thing about this place other than most of the athletic teams.

Wolf Pen Creek Amphitheater is officially a posted agenda item and will be heard this Thursday as item 7.2 on the agenda. We should come to it at approximately 6:45 to 7:15pm if you'd like to speak. My hope is that some will.

With that, I cannot comment on posted agenda items and am signing off on this thread.

Y'all have a great weekend! We live in a great community! We need your feedback to continually strive to make it even better! Email, online form, and public hearing are available.

Gig 'em! Respectfully,

Yancy '95

https://www.kbtx.com/2025/06/18/brazos-valley-nonprofit-looks-grow-local-music-scene/

Brian Alg said:

---

What kinds of musicians are y'all wanting to see?

If you want to see big names, I wonder if something like chartering busses to Cynthia Woods would make more sense than spending a fortune sprucing up WPC and hoping somebody will figure out a way to make money booking Grammy nominated artists to play the venue

---

that wouldn't spend enough of taxpayers money

Hey! We've got $75M earmarked for water wells that we don't have to drill now!

That means were all going to get a break on utility bills and taxes... Right?






…right?