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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Beth Ewen
April 2007

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Economy

Merrill Lynch’s Eckerline
advises going global
as U.S. economy slows

The concerned phone call came right after Presidents’ Day, from one of Peter Eckerline’s customers who winters in Naples, Florida. The customer had read two economic forecasts that the U.S. economy will slow this year.

Eckerline pointed to the No. 1 prediction by Merrill Lynch’s economic gurus, at the end of 2006. “The U.S. economy is going to start to slow down,” says Eckerline, senior vice president of investments in Merrill Lynch’s Wayzata office.

The Merrill folks are projecting U.S. gross domestic product, or GDP, to grow 2 percent to 2.5 percent in 2007, compared with better than 4 percent last year.

Eckerline is advising customers to look at global strategies, especially in emerging markets. “Brazil, India, China, Russia are your faster-growing economies,” he says.

Peter Eckerline, Merrill Lynch: 952.476.5612; p_eckerline@ml.com; www.outlook.ml.com