AUSTIN | Misc. Discussions - No Politics

[Tech House]

I appreciate the POV of that article because it made it very easy for me to see the flaw of my own attitude about cultural amenities such as museums. I've tended to view them as a necessary benefit for cities to be taken seriously culturally. But Austin pretty much sucks for museums, and rocks the festival scene, so maybe it's best to play to our strengths rather than trying to force ourselves to fit a mold that we're not suited for.

COTA seems like it has been a fairly justifiable risk, not so much for the city and state but for those who selected Austin as the place to expand F1 back into the States. It might be a decade or two ahead of its time. Austin is on a pretty unimpeded trajectory toward being a global destination and one of the world's great cities for the coming century, but we're still a work in progress. I don't know if COTA would ever be self-sustaining here, but I can see why some people would have guessed it would be.

One of the smart aspects of COTA is to continue developing it as a multi-event facility, rather than focusing and relying too much on F1 for its success.

Novacek, I don't recall where I read this but the notion of festival gluts has been noted and explored, and it's a real problem in many cases. The article cited 4 new major festivals just in Idaho, along with several in various out-of-the-way Midwestern locations. I don't think Austin's at risk of having too many, however.