Concert Promoter Takes Acts to Pasadena

Judging from appearances, Gary Folgner could be a comfortable denizen of Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville.

At 49, he looks like an aging, mellowed, ‘60s throwback, outfitted in an ever-present Hawaiian shirt, a mixed-breed dog for his constant companion, a two-room apartment in a decaying, 1929-vintage motel in Dana Point for his address.

In fact, Folgner has emerged over the last five years as one of the most active pop concert promoters in Southern California, a restless, ambitious businessman who works 16-hour days and isn’t averse to taking on risk and debt as he pursues a program of expansion into larger venues and bigger markets.

Folgner’s biggest, riskiest venture began Nov. 16 when the pop group Toto played the first concert at the reopened Raymond Theatre in Pasadena. Country performer Vince Gill plays there tonight while country group Highway 101 is scheduled to appear on Friday, jazz keyboardist Joe Sample on Dec. 9 and jazz-fusion group Spyro Gyra on Dec. 30.

After establishing himself at two clubs that dominate their suburban markets--the 380-seat Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and the 850-seat Ventura Theatre--Folgner is moving for the first time into the fiercely competitive Los Angeles County concert scene.

Having bought the 1,925-seat Raymond and an adjoining lot for $2.5 million, Folgner is banking on finding sustained success where other pop promoters failed during the theater’s previous incarnation as Perkins Palace.

Is there a void in the Los Angeles concert market, just waiting to be filled by a fixer-upper theater that began its existence in 1921 as a lavishly appointed vaudeville house?

“I think the fact the building has remained idle for a number of years answers that question,” said Tracy Buie, who books the Wiltern Theatre, which figures to be the Raymond’s toughest, most direct competitor.

“It’s a venue with a checkered past. I don’t see what’s going to be so automatic about it,” said Alex Hodges, who oversees West Coast concert bookings for the Nederlander Organization.

As he sat recently in the dusty balcony of the Raymond, with workers busying themselves below to refurbish the neglected house in time for its reopening, Folgner considered the question:

Since he is already well-positioned in his Ventura and Orange County clubs, which he says average more than 35 concerts a month combined, why risk $2.5 million, plus an estimated $1 million to $1.5 million in renovation costs, to go up against the likes of Bill Graham (the Wiltern’s operator), Avalon Attractions and the Nederlander Organization?

Folgner pauses, then tilts his head back and smiles broadly.

“It’s a large gamble,” he says. “You’ve gotta have a little bit of life, take a chance sometimes. Don’cha?”

Folgner knows what it is to take a chance in business and lose. Starting with the Dana Villa motel and Mexican restaurant that he still owns in Dana Point, he tried to create a restaurant chain in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. But a restaurant fire in 1980 sent Folgner’s fortunes on a downward spiral that ended when he declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, 1985.

The following month, Folgner started booking big-name pop attractions at the Coach House, a club he’d run for five years as a venue for country performers, local rock bands and Top-40 acts.

The Coach House worked immediately, thanks to a huge piece of luck: Just as Folgner began presenting concerts full time, the Golden Bear, which had been Orange County’s dominant rock club since the early ‘60s, lost its lease and went out of business.

Figuring he was on to a good thing, Folgner leased the Ventura Theatre in 1988. But Ventura has been a slow-to-develop market; Folgner says he lost $300,000 there in 1988 and $250,000 in 1989. The theater might eke out a profit in 1990, Folgner said, but only if it enjoys an unusually bountiful December.

Now, Folgner has the task of establishing Pasadena as an attractive alternative to Los Angeles.

“I think it’s going to be a very attractive market. With the look of the theater, and the revitalization of (Old Town) Pasadena, it’s going to be a place people want to go.”