The Dame to reopen at Main Street Live
As reported first September 14 on BizLex.com, displaced downtown music club, The Dame, has found a new home and will reopen on Friday, Oct. 3, in the music and dance portion of Main Street Live.
Nick Sprouse, talent buyer and former general manager of The Dame at its previous location, said a deal was finished Friday night, Sept. 12, to occupy part of the Main Street Live building, located at 367 E. Main St. The deal calls for a joint operation of the existing club and The Dame, which lost its original location in June when the buildings on the Woolworth Block were vacated and later demolished to make way for the $205 million CentrePointe project.
Sprouse said he expects his entire staff from the previous location to be employed at the new club that will have 30 to 40 percent more space than the original incarnation.
"We're looking forward to the new place-and having bigger shows," Sprouse said. He estimates the venue, formerly A1A, can hold around 500 people and will have the separate music venue and dance club which could lead to a combination of two of The Dame's most popular attractions, live music and the Friday night '80s dance party, depending on sound buffering.
Sprouse said he was busy finalizing the deal into the wee hours Saturday morning as 200 to 300 revelers were recreating the late night Friday '80s dance party on the Historic Courthouse lawn across the street from the CentrePointe project.
While there will be a joint operation of sorts with Main Street Live, Sprouse said the club will have a separate entrance from the rest of Main Street Live and will most likely be shut off from the rest of the building, which includes an outdoor volleyball court. As talent buyer, Sprouse will have "creative control" over the club, while Main Street Live managers will perform the administrative end as The Dame will "operate under (their) umbrella."
The artists playing the return show have not been booked yet, but should be announced soon, Sprouse said.
- Erik A. Carlson
WoodSongs hits the silver screen
Coming on the heels of its September 15 celebration of 500 shows, the Lexington-based WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour has landed a deal to launch the hourlong Americana music program in movie theaters.
Clearview Cinemas will screen the show in six of the company's theaters in Manhattan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania beginning in late October.
"They are going to launch WoodSongs in theaters as part of the WoodSongs Coffeehouse program, inviting and paying regional artists, songwriters and bands to perform mini-concerts in the theater before the weekly showing of WoodSongs," said the program's creator and host, Michael Johnathon.
Clearview Cinemas is a subsidiary of Cablevision, the nation's largest cable cluster with an array of signature assets that include Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, The Beacon Theater and the Sundance Channel.
Johnathon said the initial group of theaters include Red Bank Cinemas of Red Bank, N.J.; Bellevue Cinema, Montclair, N.J.; Mansfield Cinema, Hackettstown, N.J. ; 62nd and Broadway Cinema, Manhattan; Manhasset Cinemas, Manhasset, N.Y. (Long Island); and Anthony Wayne Cinema, Wayne, Penn.
"There is the big time, and then there is the really 'big time,'" said David Lord, president of the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau. "To think that these are the same folks that brought the Met to theaters, that their next venture would be Woodsongs. It says a whole lot."
Staged on Monday evenings at the Kentucky Theater in downtown Lexington, WoodSongs provides up-and-coming artists with an opportunity to market their works via a worldwide network of more than 490 radio stations, the Internet and 36 U.S. television stations. The arrangement with Clearview introduces the show to the silver screen. "This can be an amazing thing for the music, the artists and the audience," Johnathon said.
-Tom Martin
Allegiant Air to begin flying from LEX
Blue Grass Airport will add two weekly non-stops to Orlando's Stanford Airport and the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg airport on November 6.
The Las Vegas-based low-cost airline, Allegiant Air flies exclusively non-stop flights on 130- to 150-passenger regional McDonnell-Douglas jets.
Blue Grass Airport was set to announce the new service at a Tuesday, September 16, press conference. Passengers will be able to book introductory fares for $69 each way through October 8 with travel before February 5, and after the introductory period, flights will cost $89 each way, said Tyri Squyres, director of corporate communications with Allegiant.
The airline currently serves more than 60 cities with more than 100 routes and offers full-service bookings on its Web site to allow passengers to secure rental cars and hotels at the same time as booking the flight.
Allegiant, according to Squyres, has been an anomaly in the airline business as it has reported 22 consecutive quarters of profit by serving mainly small markets with flights to tourist destinations.
-Erik A. Carlson
Ground broken on UK Livestock Disease and Diagnostic Center
The University of Kentucky 's Livestock Disease and Diagnostic Center (LDDC) has kicked off an expansion and renovation project on its Coldstream facility. At a groundbreaking ceremony, a $20 million check was presented for the project's completion that will allow the LDDC to better act as a CDC for animals in times of danger for Kentucky's livestock.
The LDDC is a diagnostic facility to identify infectious diseases, regulatory diseases, provide means to meet export sale requirements and provide an early warning system for epidemics that could threaten Kentucky's agricultural industry.
UK College of Agriculture Dean Scott Smith said an expansion such as the one the LDDC is undergoing would have been able to help stem the Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome outbreak of 2001 that killed a third of all in utero foals in Central Kentucky, resulting in around a half-billion in losses, according to UK.
The 2008 session of the General Assembly issued the $20 million bond for the project and UK officials hope to have the facility up and running in time for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games a few miles north at the Kentucky Horse Park.
The ceremony was attended by a number of state legislators, Mayor Jim Newberry, Gov. Steve Beshear and Commissioner of Agriculture Richie Farmer, who said steps such as these show that Kentucky is not getting lackadaisical in its standing as "the horse capital of the world."
-Erik A. Carlson
Why "your call is being monitored," and by whom
When you call your credit card company, insurance provider or any other business where a large volume of calls are handled, you often hear that your call "may be monitored for quality assurance." Ever wonder what that means and how it's done? It's a product line of Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), which has a major presence in Lexington.
According to ACS spokesman Chris Gilligan, "Customer calls are recorded and analyzed for relevant topics and events to help businesses address key areas. The system 'listens' for all topics discussed by callers and agents and then identifies and categorizes exactly what took place during a call."
Gilligan said the recorded calls are processed to provide businesses with better and more accurate analytical data more quickly. "ACS is currently using this technology with 1,000 customer care agents and plans to expand the offering," he said, "bringing the total number of agents using this system to more than 6,000."
Foundation presents grants to Fayette County schools
The Fayette Education Foundation presented its annual 2020 Vision grants to four schools. A total of $66,000 was awarded to Lafayette High School as well as to Glendover, Yates and Dixie elementary schools.
The 2020 Vision grants fund innovative programs that support the foundation's goals of closing achievement gaps and raising overall student achievement. The grants bolster the school district's community 2020 Vision project, which studied proven ways to build children's capacity to learn and identified barriers to learning.
Cinci weighs "use it or lose it" approach on blighted properties
The Cincinnati City Council has been asked to fund a program that would seize deteriorating properties and prepare them for redevelopment.
The Cincinnati Business Courier reports that an Over-The-Rhine preservation group wants the city to establish a receivership program that would allow owners of seized properties to reclaim their buildings if they reimburse the program for the costs of stabilizing the structures. According to the report, the program would allow for the sale of the property for the purpose of redevelopment. The Over-the-Rhine Foundation estimates it would cost approximately $1.4 million to acquire, stabilize and temporarily manage 15 properties as they are transitioned into the hands of rehabbers over the next two years. The group believes the program could recover about $480,000 from selling the properties.
KCTCS ranked tops in charitable contributions
Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) ranks first in the nation among community college systems in charitable contributions, according to a national survey by Voluntary Support of Education (VSE), released by the Council for Aid to Education (CAE). KCTCS charitable contributions totaled more than $13.6 million in 2007.