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Friday, March 12, 2004

Clay Clay Clay Clay...

Ahhhhhhh~~~~ Clay Aiken will be performing at this year's Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA!!!! Can't wait... Two years ago we went and saw Bruce's idol Annie Haslam, last year we went to see pianist Jim Brickman whom we both loved, and this year we get to see my idol Clay Aiken!! Yeah!! Yeah!! Of course, I would love to see Evanescence again (and so would Bruce), but I doubt they'll perform at Musikfest. Oh, but the mysterious "Cast in Bronze" dude will be there too. It's gonna be a great trip....

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cybette wrote this at 01:50 AM
Comments

hey, I plan on going to the Musikfest in Bethlehem,PA. I was just wondering is there going to be a Clay fan meet up or something.
please post if there is.

**Amanda**

Posted by Amanda -- April 2, 2004 04:11 PM

Hi Amanda,

I'm sure there'll be some kind of a Clay fan gathering, but do not know of any specific one at this point. However you might like to check out www.paclayfans.com, since those are the fans in PA and they might be organizing something. There's also a dinner at the Musikfest just for Clay Aiken fans (details at http://www.musikfest.org/04/04claydinner.asp) and it costs $119 which includes the price of a concert ticket.

I'm thinking of getting the dinner ticket myself, because it goes on sale before the concert tickets go on sale. Seems like many fans have purchased the Musikfest club membership so they can get the VIP tickets earlier. The response was so overwhelming that Musikfest had to stop accepting new "MegaStar" members (never happened before). I only got a "Star" level membership, so I get priority over the public, but not before the Megastars.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5aikenmar26,0,7724032.story?coll=all-newslocal-hed

This will be my third Musikfest trip. To get to see Clay will make it perfect. If not, I will still enjoy myself....

Posted by Carol -- April 2, 2004 05:06 PM

Hmm, just realised that the article on The Morning Call website has been archived and can't be retrieved via the URL above. Luckily I found the cached version on google. Here it is:

Clay nation mobilizes for Musikfest
Fans of 'American Idol' phenom create mad demand for concert tickets.

By Frank Devlin
Of The Morning Call
March 26, 2004

Musikfest, one of the largest summer music festivals in the nation, has hosted thousands of performers and drawn millions of fans to Bethlehem over the last 20 summers.

Against a sprawling backdrop of polka bands and home-grown talent, legends such as Tony Bennett, Ray Charles and the Beach Boys have performed there.

They might have been legends, but they weren't Idols. Not ''American'' ones, anyway.

Not like Clay Aiken.

Ever since Aiken's Aug. 6 Musikfest concert was announced, his deeply devoted fans, aka ''Claymates,'' have been swamping Musikfest with questions about tickets and strategizing the best way to get them.

About 350 Claymates have bought Musikfest club memberships, which give them a ticket-buying advantage. They have paid $50 to $250 for a chance at snapping up tickets for the best seats before they go on sale to the public May 12.

Musikfest officials have never seen anything like ''this madness,'' as marketing director Sharon McCarthy puts it.

''We've had some shows that have been very popular that have provoked people to buy a club membership,'' McCarthy said this week. ''But I don't recall anything quite at this magnitude.''

Musikfest expects such a rush for tickets that it has taken the unusual step of giving Aiken his own on-sale dates. ''We have to do it this way because our system would be overloaded,'' McCarthy said.

The new members are ''coming from all over. Maryland. New York. A lot of folks from New Jersey, western Pennsylvania ?X really the East Coast ?X for this concert.''

Aiken may have finished second on TV's ''American Idol'' talent competition, but the wholesome North Carolinian is No. 1 in the hearts of a loyal fan base that extends beyond normal pop-star parameters to include preschoolers and grandparents.

''The first thing that drew us all in was his voice,'' said Bethlehem fan Kelly Baughman.

Indeed, Aiken has benefited greatly from his ties with the still-popular ''American Idol.'' The March 16 episode drew 26.7 million viewers, the largest audience ever, and finished No. 1 in the Nielsens for the week.

But his charitable spirit and his looks ?X some would say unconventional good looks, some would say he's not good-looking at all ?X have turned him into a phenom.

''There's something about this guy,'' said Baughman, a 35-year-old mother of three who monitors the Aiken chat on various Internet sites for an hour or two a day.

''Kids like him, but parents aren't afraid to play him in front of their kids,'' she said. ''He's religious. He has really good morals.''

''He's extremely good-looking,'' Baughman added, then, sounding surprised by what she just said, noted, ''I'm a married woman.''

Baughman said she bought a $50 Star membership to Musikfest, which allows her a chance ?X chance being the operative word ?X to purchase up to four seats on May 6, when tickets for members will be up for grabs over the Internet, by phone or at the box office starting at 10 a.m.

Baughman said she'll take her daughter, her mother and 39-year-old sister to the Bethlehem show if she gets tickets.

But like other Aiken fans, she fears her group could be shut out at 6,500-seat RiverPlace even with her Musikfest membership. ''Everyone's getting worried,'' she said.

That anxiety is evident on Internet sites, where Claymates are debating the merits of buying the Star membership or the $125 Superstar membership ?X which allows the purchase of up to 10 VIP tickets, considered the best seats in the house ?X or even the $250 Megastar membership, which permits them to buy 20 VIP tickets on April 22, two weeks before even the Stars and Superstars.

Only businesses that purchase $1,000 memberships will have the opportunity to buy up to 20 VIP seats like Megastar members.

Some Aiken fans are afraid that Musikfest will give away so many blocks of tickets to the festival's many corporate sponsors that there will be precious few left for ''real'' Aiken fans.

Musikfest will give away tickets to whatever company sponsors the night of Aiken's concert, but the giveaways will total fewer than 100.

But McCarthy says the real problem for Claymates will be competing with the employees of Musikfest sponsors who also get early ticket-buying privileges. They can buy their tickets at the same time as Star and Superstar members.

There's no telling how many employees of sponsors will try for tickets, and they might even disclose their ticket-buying passwords to people outside their companies, driving up the number of people who could try for tickets. So, the concert could be sold out before all Musikfest members can buy the tickets they want.

McCarthy agrees there's no guarantee Musikfest members will get Aiken tickets.

Can ticketless Aiken fans get membership refunds? The festival will consider them ''on a case-by-case basis,'' she said, adding that she hopes fans won't become members just to get tickets to a single performance.

The Aiken concert is a tougher ticket than it would have been otherwise, fans say, because he is playing only a few shows this summer, as opposed to his current tour with fellow ''Idol'' alum Kelly Clarkson, which included recent stops at Wilkes-Barre's Wachovia Arena and Philadelphia's Liacouras Center at Temple University.

In both cities, the venues were substantially larger than Musikfest's RiverPlace. The Liacouras can accommodate up to 11,000, while the Wachovia can seat about 8,500.

McCarthy says the best shot at getting tickets is online at www.musikfest.org. If fans go to the box office or use the phone, they will be waiting for a Musikfest middleman to make the same transaction they could do themselves.

Despite the uncertainty over the ticket situation, Claymates are reserving hotel rooms in Bethlehem.

David Urban, director of sales at the Comfort Suites on W. Third Street, says he has reserved a block of 20 rooms for Aiken fans for the nights of Aug. 6 and 7. ''I'm sure there will be more,'' Urban said. '''American Idol' has been pretty popular. I watch it myself.''

Claymates see themselves as boosters as well as fans, Baughman says.

On an Internet site recently, a fan exulted in the sale of 44 copies of Aiken's new single, ''The Way,'' one recent night at a central Pennsylvania Borders, saying it would beef up, if only slightly, national sales figures.

''YAY! We did our little part!!'' the fan wrote.

It is that kind of dedication that has helped sell more than 2 million copies of Aiken's debut album, ''Measure of a Man.''

Other fans crusade to get Aiken more airplay. ''We now have a new area on PAClayFans Harrisburg/Lancaster/York,'' paclayfans.com announces, ''exclusively to work on getting Clay more airplay!!!!''

To Aiken agnostics, all of ''this madness'' calls to mind the time David Letterman held up a Phil Collins album at the zenith of the British singer's popularity in the 1980s and said that every night he got down on his knees and implored, ''Lord, let this man get more airplay.''

Letterman was being sarcastic, but Aiken fans are sincere in their efforts to further their Idol's career by buying his discs and mounting campaigns to get them airplay.

''Clay fans are extremely dedicated,'' Baughman said. ''They want to see him succeed.''

''It's really sick,'' she said. ''We feel like we're like his followers. Because he's so personable in his concerts and his interviews, it's almost like you know the guy, but you don't.''

''The fans,'' McCarthy said, ''you've got to love them.''

frank.devlin@mcall.com
610-778-2235
Copyright © 2004, The Morning Call

Posted by Carol -- April 18, 2004 03:57 PM

i heard that til all members get to but there tickets for bethlehem. when they go on sale to public the concert will be sold out. seen clay in wilkebarre, would really like to go to bethlehem but not sure if i can. going to concert in september at the yor fair. can't wait.

Posted by kathy -- April 23, 2004 06:41 PM