INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - When Steve Sybesma launched the Indiana Rock History website and Facebook group this summer, he was more than a music fan compiling decades of concerts in a database.
Sybesma played a large role in thousands of shows that happened in Indiana, thanks to his time as co-owner of concert company Sunshine Promotions from 1974 to 2000.
As the ultimate live music insider, Sybesma is sharing event details that can’t be found anywhere else. Beyond the basics of a concert’s date, headlining performer and supporting acts, the Indiana Rock History project frequently discloses attendance figures, what artists were paid and how much money was collected in ticket sales.
From 1980 to 1999, for instance, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ payday in Indianapolis increased from $7,500 for a show at Market Square Arena to more than $400,000 for a performance at Ruoff Music Center (known then as Deer Creek Music Center).
Concert schedules evaporated during the coronavirus pandemic, giving people ample time to reminisce about sold-out nights at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum and music under the stars at the Indianapolis Tennis Center.
But Sybesma didn’t keep detailed notes with nostalgia in mind. The practical reason for recordkeeping: Sunshine wanted to know its track record when talking to booking agents about hiring bands for a second or third time in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne or Dayton, Ohio.
“That was our history,” Sybesma said. “We could look back and say, ‘Do we think we made money or lost money on the show?’ ‘What kind of deal can we make?’”
Loose leaf folders at Sunshine’s office documented the rise of the Indianapolis company as it presented concerts in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. The business eventually expanded to shows in West Virginia, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada and Puerto Rico.
“It was all on paper,” Sybesma said. “There were periods when we were so busy that it was hard to take the time to record the stuff.”
“Busy” isn’t the word to describe the concert industry in 2020. Sybesma, who now lives in Florida and is the co-founder of events company Frameless Creative, launched Indiana Rock History as a pandemic project.
The IUPUI alum built the indianarockhistory.com website, and he decided to crowdsource information from the public for concerts unrelated to his work at Sunshine.
“I realized how much information I didn’t have,” Sybesma said. “Part of the idea was, ‘Let’s make it fun for everybody.’ “
Indianapolis resident Mark Grannan began attending concerts in 1972, when he caught the Rolling Stones at the Indiana Convention Center. (Stevie Wonder appeared as the supporting act.)
Grannan’s love of live music hasn’t waned. He purchased a lawn pass that applied to all concerts this summer at Ruoff - shows wiped out, unfortunately, by the pandemic.
The Indiana Rock History project carries legitimacy, Grannan said, because of Sybesma’s involvement. More than 1,100 people have joined the Facebook group.
“It proves there’s a lot of people like me who say, ‘I was there,’” Grannan said. “They kept their ticket stubs; they kept their memorabilia.”
After Facebook group members post images of tickets, backstage passes and newspaper ads, Sybesma preserves selected examples at indianarockhistory.com.
Grannan contributed an image of a 1990 Farm Aid pass to the website, and tickets he’s posted to the Facebook group include a 1977 Emerson, Lake & Palmer show at Market Square Arena and a 1979 Supertramp concert at the same venue.
In terms of sharing an event’s financials - details that were considered proprietary or simply no one else’s business when the concert happened - Sybesma said he hasn’t heard any complaints.
“It’s more than 20 years ago now,” he said. “It’s more history than it is confidential.”
SFX Entertainment purchased Sunshine in 1997, part of a rollup in which radio executive Robert F.X. Sillerman acquired nearly every major independent concert promoter in the United States. SFX was sold to Clear Channel in 2000, which became Live Nation in 2005.
SFX reportedly paid more than $50 million for Sunshine, showing it’s possible to become wealthy as a concert promoter. At the same time, numbers posted at Indiana Rock History reveal that profit margins aren’t necessarily high.
In simplest terms, a promoter’s largest expense is payment to the performer.
When Bob Seger headlined Market Square Arena - the venue that preceded Bankers Life Fieldhouse - on April 28, 1978, about $104,000 in tickets were sold and Sunshine paid Seger $46,000. That’s a difference of $58,000.
When Seger headlined three nights at Market Square Arena in 1996, an average of $239,000 in tickets were sold per show and Sunshine paid Seger an average of $153,000 per show. That’s a difference of $86,000 per show.
In addition to paying the performer, a promoter is responsible for expenses that may include renting the venue, hiring security, advertising the event, arranging for insurance and costs associated with selling tickets.
“When you sell out a show at Market Square Arena, everybody looks at it and says, ‘Wow, you probably made a couple hundred thousand dollars tonight.’ It’s not like that,” Sybesma said. “Somebody might have made the money. We made our small share of it.
“But I can’t complain. It was good.”
Sybesma wasn’t part of Sunshine Promotions when the company presented its first show. Founded by Dave Lucas and Joe Halderman, Sunshine debuted with an Isaac Hayes concert at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum on Nov. 4, 1971.
Bulldozer operator Sybesma entered show business on Jan. 2, 1972, when he and a friend presented Indiana acts the Chosen Few (precursor to the Faith Band) and Pure Funk (precursor to Roadmaster) at Melody Skateland, 5101 W. Washington St.
According to Sybesma’s records, a crowd of 1,600 attended the show and the promoters made a profit of $300.
“We thought we could do some shows at the Coliseum, but we had no experience whatsoever,” Sybesma said. “When I called the agents, they kind of blew me off.”
By Memorial Day weekend in 1974, Sybesma had built enough clout to present his “Indy 500 Festival of Music” at 16th Street’s Bush Stadium one day before that year’s big race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The lineup of acts included ZZ Top, Kansas and Muddy Waters.
Lucas saw that show’s success and invited Sybesma to become a partner at Sunshine, then headquartered on Guilford Avenue in Broad Ripple.
Sybesma cites a string of Bachman-Turner Overdrive shows in Louisville, Evansville and Indianapolis in September 1974 as an eye-opener for Sunshine.
“We made $20,000 a show,” he said. “That was a huge amount of money for us, and it helped to bankroll the company. At Sunshine, we never had an investor. We just kind of built organically.”
Halderman sold his interest in the company in 1980. Lucas was promoted to co-CEO of Clear Channel Entertainment’s music division in 2002, and he exited the company after an executive restructuring in 2004.
Sunshine’s legacy is seen today at Noblesville’s Ruoff amphitheater, built by Lucas and Sybesma in 1989, and Old National Centre, renovated by the duo in 1996.
Sybesma mentions two concerts in 1975 as shows that solidified Sunshine’s place as the dominant promoter in Indiana.
Thanks to building a relationship with Premier Talent Agency and its founder, Frank Barsalona, Sunshine was given the opportunity to work with the Rolling Stones when their tour visited Bloomington and Louisville.
At IU’s Assembly Hall, $140,000 in tickets were sold and the band was paid $93,000.
“Once we did the Stones, we talked to booking agents and they would say, ‘Well, we’re talking to this promoter and we’re talking to that promoter,’ ” Sybesma said. “We’d say, ‘Why would you book through them? We’re the guys who brought the biggest band in the world. If the Stones have confidence in us, you should, too.’ ”
Concert enthusiast Grannan said he became fully hooked on live music when he attended a David Bowie show promoted by Sunshine at the Indiana Convention Center.
Bowie’s 1974 “Diamond Dogs” tour made headlines for its groundbreaking stage sets and lighting effects.
“After that, because of the production, I said, ‘I have to see these things,’ ” Grannan said.
Grannan said he enjoys visiting the Indiana Rock History website and learning about shows that happened before his time as an audience member.
Jimi Hendrix, for instance, appeared as a guitarist in the Isley Brothers’ band in 1965 on the campus of DePauw University. Hendrix brought his own show to Muncie in 1968, to Indianapolis in 1969 and to Evansville in 1970.
The Who headlined the Indiana Beach Ballroom in 1968, and Cream played Clowes Hall on Butler University’s campus earlier that year.
“Things like that just blow my mind,” Grannan said. “(Indiana Rock History) is chronicling the things we ‘kind of’ remember, collating all these great memories into one database.”
Sybesma said he devoted 60-hour weeks to entering the first batch of concert dates online. Keeping up with new entries also takes time, but Sybesma is eager to fill in gaps in the state’s live music story.
“I’d like for people to come and find out about it,” he said. “A lot of people don’t know. It’s only 1,100 people on Facebook. There’s a lot more people who love concerts that haven’t discovered it yet.”
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Source: The Indianapolis Star
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