Music Notes by Jim Hanas MTV Comes to Tom Lee As Mud Island’s dinosaur concert season rolls on this week with an appearance Tuesday by aging prog-rockers Yes, new music fans can at least look forward to October. MTV announced last Thursday that its second annual Sports and Music Festival will be held here at Tom Lee Park October 16th through 18th. Last year’s inaugural event, which was held in Austin, drew more than 50,000 people and was broadcast relentlessly over several months. The basic idea behind the festival is to combine extreme sports like in-line skating, BMX, and skateboarding with live music, and in the process sell a bunch of advertising aimed at 18-to-24-year-olds. ESPN has the X Games; MTV has the Sports and Music Festival. Competition for the event came down to seven cities, although MTV officials won’t say which ones. MTV picked Memphis, officially at least, for a variety of platitudinous reasons that need not be recreated here. Whatever the reasons, officials were thrilled. At a press conference last Thursday, Mayor Willie Herenton proclaimed that the festival would put Memphis in the international spotlight, and speculated – as public officials are required to do in such situations – that it could bring as much as $20 million into the local economy. According to Kevin Kane of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the community’s outlay for hosting the event might be $150,000 tops, a small price to pay, he adds, for the exposure the eight hour program, which will air three times beginning on November 7th, will bring. Kane estimates – as presidents of CVBs are required to do – that the publicity alone is worth $3 million. No matter how you look at it, landing the festival looks like a no-lose situation, notwithstanding the annoying hype and rebel-marketing surrounding extreme sports’ big-panted ’tude. The annual Arts in the Park festival in Audubon Park happens to be the same weekend, but it’s hard to imagine the two events sharing that much of an audience. And even aside from the economic boon and the publicity, the Sports & Music Festival is sure to bring some big-name acts with it at a time when Memphis could use some. The lineup for the three-day festival won’t be announced for another couple of weeks, but the Austin event included performances by Everclear, Smashmouth, the Crystal Method, and Wu-Tang Clan. In addition to the mainstage, there will be a second stage featuring independent and local acts. Setup for the festival, which requires constructing courses for the various competitions, will begin two or three weeks before the event. Tickets will be in the $7 to $10 range per day and will go on sale September 1st. Details on how bands can get a spot on the local stage will be released in coming weeks. Stay tuned for further instructions.