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Buffalo Grove Days hoping to boost music acts after losing fireworks

With a new venue for Buffalo Grove Days, the village is talking about opening it with a bang - just not the bang residents have come to expect.

Buffalo Grove Days will no longer feature fireworks, due to the logistical restrictions posed by the new site at Rylko Community Park.

That frees up $16,000 the village can use to help upgrade the entertainment with bigger name bands.

At Monday's committee of the whole meeting, village board members discussed whether to not only use the fireworks money, but also kick in an additional $20,000 to boost the Saturday night concert offering.

Trustees were agreeable to dipping into the $16,000 but showed they weren't quite ready to rock 'n' roll, balking at spending an additional $15,000-$20,000.

Buffalo Grove Days Committee Co-Chair Paulette Greenberg said the committee would like to have more money to spend on bands.

Local bands, such as tribute bands, cost under $10,000 each, she said. The $10,000-$20,000 range would include bands from the 1960s like Herman's Hermits.

"The problem we have is the demographics of Buffalo Grove show most of the people (are) 35-50. This is the group that wants to hear '80s and '90s music," she said.

To get bands like Steppenwolf and Christopher Cross would cost between $20,000 and $30,000. The ideal, she said, would be to get to the $30,000 to $40,000 level, a neighborhood that would include Blues Traveler, Crystal Gayle, Gordon Lightfoot and Eddie Money.

Reaction to some of the bands was lukewarm, with Trustee Joanne Johnson saying at one point, "Honestly, some of those bands sound pretty old." But she also said, "I think attendance could go up dramatically if we had a band people recognized."

Trustee Steven Trilling questioned whether the village would be able to bring in enough additional revenue to offset the cost of a bigger name band.

Finance Director Scott Anderson said the village's cut from liquor sales is about $20,000 - the village gets 50 percent of sales.

Assuming that the village's take from Saturday night would be $10,000, Trilling responded, "Even if we go another 50 percent in sales on a Saturday night, you're only going to gather 5,000 dollars more in revenue from beer sales."

Trustees said they needed more information before making the extra investment. Village Manager Dane Bragg said village staff could come back with more information, but emphasized that the time for making a decision is drawing near.

Christopher Cross
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