BY: ADAM HURSH

Downtown construction shouldn’t put a damper on this weekend’s Tucson Weekly Fall Club Crawl scheduled for Oct. 6.

Hotel Congress’ Entertainment Director David Slutes said, “Club Crawl will be exactly the same.” Rio Nuevo construction has closed off freeway exists on Interstate 10 along with Downtown construction making many people want to avoid the Downtown area. “The construction Downtown will have virtually no impact.” said Slutes.

Club Crawl which begins at 8 p.m. for the majority of the venues has 25 stages of live music Downtown and in the Fourth Avenue area. Slutes says he estimates that 8,000-10,000 people will attend the event.

Slutes said he hoped people wouldn’t get the perception that things would be different because of the construction, which has torn up big chunks of Congress Street near Club Congress and the Rialto. “Congress Street is blocked during Club Crawl. Therefore, it’s the same as it was before,” he said.

They rethought that notion. When planning the event, organizers considered the construction could be a problem, but Slutes said, “That’s what we thought but wait, it’s just like Club Crawl all the time. It will probably be better because there will be no normal Downtown traffic,” he said.   

As for problems with parking, Slutes said there are plenty of places to park Downtown and on the Fourth Avenue area. To help people commute from one club to another, they have a shuttle bus called “Redline” that will transport people to all ends of the event.

“This way people can park on Fourth and take the Redline Downtown if they like.” Slutes said.

Wendy Erica Werden, director of marketing at Bookman’s is selling tickets to Club Crawl for the first time and hosting a stage with 92.9 The Mountain on the Fourth Avenue area.

“Sales have been going very well at the Grant store.” Werden said. She said that the planning for the event was extensive that she didn’t think there would be any problems because of construction.

To attend Club Crawl, purchase wristbands in advance at Bookman’s locations for $8 or buy them at the door for $10. This event is for ages 21 and over. 

Adam Hursh is a journalism student at the University of Arizona. He can be reached at hursh(at)email.arizona.edu.