Common Ground Faces Tough Economy

The annual Common Ground Music Festival is just three days away and as organizers continue preparing the park for the festival they tell us they expect attendance to be down.

Common Ground, its a Lansing summer staple but as crews prepare the grounds for a Monday kickoff, they might not see the number of people they expected.

"We've been every year prior for the past six years but this year just because of the economy and my husbands in the construction business, its too much," says Tammy Stanley.

"We've gone like the past three or four years on and off and this years just out of the question with how the economy is," says Nikki Walzak.

But festival organizers say they expected ticket sales to be down and they're prepared.

"The sales are better than we anticipated ya know with the economy down all the festivals across the nation are seeing about 20% and we're not down like that," says President of Center Park Productions Eric Hart.

But despite discounts on Saturday night for the festival's 10 year anniversary, "10 dollar tickets, 2 dollar beers, dollar food, fireworks," says Hart.

Some say the festival should have lowered ticket costs to help loyal fans stay on budget.

"Maybe had some free upgrades or ya know, something for a bang for your buck so to speak," says Stanley.

But organizers say its not that easy, considering big sponsors arent offering up the cash they once did.

"While we saw some major sponsors who are corporate sponsors have some challenges many of them stayed with us, they reduced their funding levels but we found a bunch of new sponsors, so we're off about what we expected," says Hart.

Festival goers spent 900,000 on tickets at last years Commonground and organizers are planning to come in no more than 10% under that, for this year.