In which I offer friendly advice to the good people at Headliners Music Hall.

If the question is, "How does the locally owned and operated Headliners Music Hall compete against Live Nation-owned and -operated Mercury Ballroom?", then the answer is this:

Headliners needs to be MORE local than Mercury.

Not that Headliners isn't locally oriented already. In many ways, it is. The point, and my not necessarily unbiased advice: Be even more so. As much as possible. And rub the corporate entity's nose in it.

Restricting the focus to beer: Every multinational starter beer being served at Headliners negates the venue's argument v.v. Mercury's corporate advantages. Yes, of course the Headliners bar must make the customers happy and reap the mark-up whirlwind. But karma can be quite the bitch, and we've seen from our temporary experience with Houndmouth beer at Houndmouth's show that local products can compete. Craft beer, craft music. Forecastle can't or won't do it; Headliners should.

Some Headliners loyalists apprehensive over opening of the new Mercury Ballroom music venue, by Michael Tierney (Insider Louisville)

Developer Bill Weyland‘s CITY Properties Group and Live Nation have teamed up in Louisville to open the Mercury Ballroom. Though the new music venue isn’t set to open until April, its concert calendar has already sparked concern over how the locally owned Headliners Music Hall will be affected.

Jeffery Smith runs Crash Avenue, a locally owned media and management company with offices in Louisville and New York City. Last week Smith posed this question on Facebook, stirring the pot in the Louisville music scene:

Do you boycott Mercury Ballroom because they’re going to be in direct competition with our locally owned / local fave Headliners Music Hall? Understand, they’re going to be competing for the same talent coming through Louisville… but Live Nation has the money to essentially throw at the talent until they drown out the competition. If you’re going to be diligent about eating locally, should you not be diligent about extending where you choose to take in your smaller national acts?

Insider Louisville interviewed Smith, who claims Live Nation — the publicly traded (NYSE, LYV), Los Angeles-based entertainment company — may snatch a market that Billy Hardison built.

Hardison owns Headliners and is a partner in the local talent-buying agency Production Simple, alongside Joe Agabrite III, John Grantz, and Lizi Hagan ...