After a year of the city cracking down on bars and clubs that present music, it’s been awfully quiet lately. I suppose the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras squelched the naysayers who don’t want music in their neighborhoods but who have little to say when it means a lot of money coming into the city—either that, or the city is tacitly conceding that these complainers don’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things. Visitors mean money. Shall we acknowledge it? New Orleans is driven by a tourist economy. I, like many natives of the city, are picky when it comes to welcoming certain types of visitors. All of them spend money here, of course, typically in hotels and restaurants. They need a place to sleep and they need to eat, usually in downtown restaurants. They have to go to Bourbon Street; the city has touted that area for 50 years. So those are the businesses that make the most of tourist dollars. I would venture to guess that most visitors are here for a special event (Mardi Gras, a sporting event), or perhaps for a convention. Many of the larger events that come to the city now do not benefit local businesses to the extent they could be. For example, during Super Bowl XLVII a lot of the visitor traffic was shunted to Woldenberg Park and the riverfront to the NFL Experience, where attendees could buy merchandise, eat and listen to bands. This certainly couldn’t have done much good for local businesses, other than the ones that were included in the Experience. Same thing for Essence Fest; the city in all its quirky glory—the stuff that makes New Orleans a unique travel destination—isn’t really part of the program. These events are self-contained to certain areas so that organizers can funnel off a good share of the money spent by attendees. It was just announced that the World Wrestling Foundation (WWE) will present its WrestleMania XXX on April 6, 2014 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. WrestleMania is arguably the second-biggest sporting event in the U.S., after the Super Bowl, so this is a very big deal for the local hospitality industry. Good business for big business, but what about the little guys?

Believe me, I’m not against any event that can bring visitors to New Orleans. But it’s a shame that there’s not as strong a lobby for music clubs and local retailers—particularly for those outside the typical tourist areas—as there is for hotels and restaurants. I think this is one area in which the city needs to step up: Let’s make sure that everyone in the city gets a piece of the visitor pie, perhaps by requiring that these self-contained events include local music in the festivities, and that local merchants and restaurateurs get a portion of the visitor dollar.