Don't be left ashore - Now's The Time To Plan For Tall Stacks - Cincinnati, Ohio

The 2006 Tall Stacks Music, Arts & Heritage Festival won't steam into town for more than four months, but the time to book a cruise is now, managing director Mike Smith said.

It's also a good time to start thinking about hotel reservations for out-of-town family and friends, said Michel Sheer, general manager of the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza, downtown.

That's because the 2003 cruises were 97 percent sold-out by late summer, leaving procrastinators high and dry. Downtown hotels also teetered on the brink of selling out, forcing visitors to book rooms out to the the Interstate 275 beltway.

The same is expected this year.

Set for Oct. 4-8, the five-day festival that began in 1988 is in the same location as the previous five festivals - the central riverfront, from the Public Landing east to Yeatman's Cove and Bicentennial Commons at Sawyer Point.

Seventeen boats from New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Louisville, St. Paul, Charleston, W.Va., Peoria, Nashville, Moline, Chattanooga, Galveston and Cincinnati are booked to sail on 350 cruises, ranging from sightseeing spins around the harbor to breakfast and lunch excursions, elaborate dinner cruises and a large assortment of themed cruises.

There are 141,000 cruise tickets for the 2006 festival. About half are sold, leaving 70,000 or so on the market. Tickets have been sold in all 50 states, plus Canada and England.

That means a lot of hotel bookings are coming.

"The next 30 to 60 days will tell the tale, and that's the same trend we saw in 2003 - a little slow at first, then summer hits and it all happens," Sheer said.

Westin general manager Wayne Bodington agrees.

"The Tall Stacks weekend has more bookings than the weekend before or after, so that tells me people are here for the festival. But I don't expect the real activity to begin until a month or two before."

Even with 70,000 cruise tickets sold, spots are still available for almost all cruises - only five are sold out, and even those have back-up cruises available.

The $46-a-head "Martinis with Ol'Blue Eyes" cruise on the Magnolia Belle, for example, is sold out for 10:15 p.m. Oct. 7, but $44 tickets remain for the same cruise at 9:15 p.m. Oct 4 on the Colonel and 9:45 p.m. Oct. 5 on the Belle of Cincinnati.

"Sales are following the same trend they did in 2003," Smith said. "We see a big spurt when sales open, then it drops off during the winter when no one thinks about being outdoors. Then as the weather gets better sales pick up. Already this month, we've seen a 55 percent increase over last month."

Ticket sales will continue to escalate, Smith said, until August. That's when the music lineup is announced and tickets go on sale for land-based activities.

They'll be $22 or $20 at Kroger stores with a Kroger card. Smith is expecting to sell at least 125,000 of them.

Officials also hopeto announce the musical acts by Aug. 5.

Smith is promising 36 or 37 national acts, some new to Tall Stacks and some repeats from 2003, and 30 to 40 local and regional bands.

Like 2003, they'll all be related to roots music - blues, folk and rock.

That 2003 festival attracted 900,000 people and delivered an economic impact of $48 million.

E-mail jknippenberg@enquirer.com

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