Can tweaks fix Riverbend’s early headliners?

Last week, I wrote about the seeming i nability of Riverbend to evolve in any meaningful way. In fairness to Friends of the Festival, I pointed out that a notable exception to this was the decision last year to double the number of Coke Stage headliners.

The addition of a 6:30 p.m. show each night was one of the biggest shakeups at the festival in years, but while I applauded the move, it wasn’t flawlessly executed. The main stumbling block was the fact that organizers didn’t adjust the administration of Star Seating to accommodate the additional acts.

For an additional fee, those with a Star Seat ticket are assigned a spot to view the headliner in the premium-tier real estate directly in front of the stage. Ostensibly, this spares them from the bloody fisticuffs and shantytown skulduggery that the common folk must endure to claim a spot on the Coke Lawn.

If you’ve got the scratch, this probably sounds like a great way to see an artist you’re especially fond of, but there was a fundamental flaw: The tickets reserved your spot for the entire evening.

In years with only a single headliner, this made sense. The Coke Stage was dormant until 9:30 p.m ., so it didn’t matter if people didn’t show up until later in the evening to take their seats.

The doubled lineup changed that. Those who bought a Star Seat ticket planning to see Merle Haggard, for instance, also had the best seats to see his co-headliner, Leon Russell. Again, t his sounds ideal — double the value for your money — but people often didn’t show up for both shows.

This made from some pretty embarrassing situations. Early evening headliners like St. Paul & The Broken Bones or Little River Band often had to try to engage an audience located about a quarter of a mile away on the other side of the lattice fence-enclosed Star Seating area, which was all but empty.

This year, organizers wisely decided to tweak how Star Seats are sold and divided them up into blocks for each headliner. Hopefully, this will help eliminate the audience vacuum during the early show.

For my money, this year’s crop of opening headliners, which includes Trampled by Turtles, ZZ Ward, Salt-N-Pepa, Blackberry Smoke and Here Come the Mummies, easily trumps the closing act on practically every night. It’s nice to know their fans will have equal opportunity to see them in the best possible light.

But I’d like to know what you think. If you’ve bought Star Seat tickets for an early headliner this year, email me and tell me who you splurged on and why.