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	Tall Stacks 2003 From Minnesota to Texas, 17 boats converge on Ohio's banks in Cincinnati to celebrate region's steamboat heritage Post staff report Tickets • General admission pin, good for all shore activities and music for all five days, but doesn't include boarding boats. Available in advance for $12 at Kroger stores. Will cost $15 at the event. Children under 12 receive free general admission. • An $18 tour ticket allows you to tour all boats except Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. all five days. A general admission pin is included with the purchase. • Riverboat cruises range in price from $18 to $75 and a general admission pin is included. Can be purchased through website www.tallstacks.com, by calling toll-free 1-866-497-8255 or at the Tall Stacks Store at Tower Place in downtown Cincinnati. About Tall Stacks • Tall Stacks 2003 is the fifth Tall Stacks event. The others were in 1988 (as part of Cincinnati's bicentennial celebration), 1992, 1995 and 1999. • An estimated 500,000 people will attend the five-day festival, the world's largest riverboat festival. • A volunteer force of about 2,500 helps make it happen, making it the largest volunteer-driven event in the tri-state. • 250 volunteers in period costumes add to the fun. • About 25,000 pounds of prime rib is served aboard the riverboats for dinner and lunch cruises. • About 50,000 school-aged children are expected to visit the Sawyertown kids area. • The living history exhibits at the festival will include the 5th U.S. Colored Infantry, representing one of the Civil War Union army's black units. • In 1999, an estimated 660,000 attended and saw 19 riverboats, pumping $30 million into the local economy. Organizers estimate 25 percent of the visitors were from outside greater Cincinnati. • About 75 local and national musicians will perform on four stages at Tall Stacks. Headlining musicians this year include Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Steve Earle and the Dukes, Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, Los Lobos, Nickel Creek, Ricky Skaggs and Lucinda Williams. • Organizers expect all 117,000 tickets available for steamboat cruises at the festival to be sold. Buyers are coming from at least 45 states. • The Island Queen appearing in the festival was named for a steamboat that provided cruises to Coney Island in the 1940s. That boat caught fire and burned when a welder's torch caused her 27,000 gallons of fuel to explode. Nineteen crew members died, and the $1 million boat was a total loss. Only the iron frame of her calliope didn't burn. • During World War II, the Belle of Louisville had a brief military career towing oil barges up and down the Mississippi River to aid the war effort. Formerly known as the Avalon, it operated in the Cincinnati harbor before being bought by Jefferson County, Ky., in April 1963. • The Delta Queen also helped out during World War II, when it transported military personnel between ocean vessels and Navy hospitals. Built in 1926, she first cruised the Sacramento River in California before arriving in Cincinnati in 1947. She is the only paddlewheel steamboat ever to pass through the Panama Canal. • During the heyday of steamboating in the 1850s, an average of more than 20 boats arrived in and departed from Cincinnati every day. The fifth edition of Tall Stacks ventures into new waters.The riverboat festival is trying to lure more young adults by adding lots of music and is encouraging more return visits by selling an admission lapel pin good for all five days. "We've opened up Tall Stacks to an entirely new set of demographics," said Mike Smith, executive director of the Oct. 15-19 Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky riverfront extravaganza."In the past, visitors in their 20s and 30s were in shorter supply than people in their 50s, 60s and 70s. This year I hope there's something for everyone from 8 to 80."The backbone of the festival remains the same -- 17 riverboats from 13 cities, from Minneapolis to Galveston, all coming, going and docking at the Port of Cincinnati, a spectacular sight. "There is no cutback in the heart of the festival," assured Smith. "There were some questions that maybe we were taking the festival in a direction not true to the core of the event. That is not accurate."Boats are the core of the festival. We're just tweaking some elements that weren't working."For the boats, that means eliminating many short, harbor cruises and replacing them with themed cruises, featuring activities like wine-tasting, the history of steamboating and an ice cream social. For shore events, it means booking 75 musical acts, including Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Ricky Skaggs, C.J. Chenier, Los Lobos, Delbert McClinton, John Mayall, John Hammond, Bo Diddley and B.B. King. Advance purchase of a $12 general admission lapel pin, available at Kroger stores, includes admission to every musical performance over five days and all other shore activities. Pins go up in price to $15 beginning the first day of the festival.There also will be more cultural, historical and educational exhibits, such as a presentation in conjunction with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center -- "Along Jordan's Path," depicting the roles of slaves in the steamboat era of the 1800s.It all adds up to a new, long name for the event -- The Tall Stacks Music, Arts & Heritage Festival -- and a bid to shore up shortcomings of the last two events. While the inaugural 1988 Tall Stacks thrived because of the novelty of a mass gathering of riverboats and a 1992 encore drew big crowds, the 1995 event lost $800,000 and attendance at the 1999 festival was off 22 percent from projections.That prompted organizers to re-think future festivals."We tore the event apart and analyzed it," said Smith. "We made some adjustments. The show needs to stay fresh. Ringling Brothers doesn't present the same circus 20 years in a row. "The new emphasis on music is intended to complement the riverboat theme."Our selection of musicians is tightly focused," said Smith. "The music ties to the river cities that we are in effect hosting through the boat visits, cities like Nashville and Memphis."B.B. King and his blues, for example, are influenced by the southern experience. "The additional music has increased the Tall Stacks production budget from $8 million in 1999 to $11 million this year and the new admission price is designed to help balance the higher budget."We raised prices," said Smith. "It was $5 in 1999 and now it's $12."However, Smith said it can be viewed as a bargain with repeat visits because $5 was for one day in 1999 and $12 is for all five days of a "magnificent festival" with different musicians each day."If we can get a half-million visits, we'll be ecstatic," he said. If that happens, the festival should have a $40 million economic impact on Greater Cincinnati.Children under 12 are free and 50,000 school children are scheduled to make free field trips to the festival. This is the first Tall Stacks since terrorists attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001 and while the travel and tourism industries are still recuperating, Smith doesn't expect Tall Stacks to be hampered by any lingering effects."We're a regional event that's easily accessible, with most people coming from within a couple of hundred miles," he said. "We're installing security systems and considerations to make sure everybody is safe."Two boats will be making their first Tall Stacks appearance -- the Chattanooga Star, which 10 months of the year travels the nation educating school children about rivers, and the General Jackson, based at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville and featuring Opry-style concerts during cruises. Only three of the boats are authentic steamboats -- the Belle of Louisville, the Delta Queen and the Mississippi Queen. The rest are well-detailed replicas. Other Tall Stacks boats are the Anson Northrup of Minneapolis, the Celebration Belle of Moline, Ill., the Colonel of Galveston, Tex., the Creole Queen of New Orleans, the Harriet Bishop of St. Paul and the Spirit of Jefferson of Louisville.Also, the Spirit of Cincinnati, the River Queen of Covington, Ky., the PA Denny of Charleston, W. Va., the Majestic of Pittsburgh, the Island Queen of Memphis and the Keystone Belle of Pittsburgh. Themed boat cruises run the gamut -- the history of quilting, zoo animals, an Elvis Presley impersonator, dessert tasting, beer tasting, martini tasting and scotch tasting.Some evening cruises feature various kinds of music -- bluegrass, big band, country and western, blues, jazz, gospel and disco. On shore, Sawyertown, the popular Tall Stacks' children's area, has been expanded this year to include 10 hands-on learning areas.A world premier musical based on Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" will be presented three times a day by Children's Theatre of Cincinnati.Also on tap are nightly fireworks, morning hot air balloon races and evening hot air balloon "glows." As in past years, there will be riverboat races, strolling musicians and performers, people dressed in 19th century steamboat-era fashions and re-creations of Civil War military camps.Tall Stacks souvenirs are keeping up with trends. In addition to caps, shirts, watches, plates and cups, there's a seven-inch high Captain Tall Stacks Bobblehead figurine for $20. Publication Date: Saturday, October 11, 2003