Verizon Wireless Music Center closing soon?

As John Mayer began his June 30 show at Verizon Wireless Music Center in Noblesville, Ind., an orange and pink sunset framed the stage with fireworks bursting in the skies on either side.\nAt least 20,000 fans packed the outdoor concert for what could be one of the venue's last shows. Live Nation, the company that owns the land housing the music center, confirmed in December that the 203-acre property was officially for sale. \nFollowing the announcement, more than 18,000 people -- enough to fill the lawn and part of the pavilion -- have signed an online petition to save the venue. "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," commented one woman who signed the petition. But the future is still unclear for the 18-year-old music center.\n"Concerts are better under the stars," reads one of the signs inside the venue, but if bulldozers make way for housing development -- which many fans suspect will happen when the center is sold -- some doubt that stars will keep coming to Indiana.\n"There aren't going to be as many big names," said Ron Signore, a junior from Purdue University in attendance at the Mayer concert. While Signore and his friends said closing down the center might be good for the state fair grounds or Conseco Fieldhouse, neither of those venues can come close to providing what Verizon has to offer, they said. \n"The atmosphere is because of the people; the people are friendly and you feel like you're part of the show," he said. "They make you feel like you're welcome."\nSignore's friend, Katie Gregory, also chimed in. She saw her first-ever concert, Boyz II Men, on the lawn with her mother.\n"I'm extremely depressed," she said. "This place has been here since I've grown up."\nAs it is for many of the summer shows, the lawn for John Mayer was packed with bodies: From a baby too young to walk or talk to a teenage boy swiping a Coors Light tall boy from the unattended bin of a beer peddler to glossy-eyed 20-somethings passing joints to the 50-somethings sitting behind them and the thousands in between.\nWhen considering the mass of souls who collaborate to create the atmosphere at Indiana's largest outdoor music venue from May to September, one might think Gregory's description of the venue as "intimate" is off-base, but Signore agreed.\n"The only way to describe this place is intimate," he said, his eyes growing large and gesturing with his hands as if to say, "Look at all this!" And for those who have never seen a show at Verizon, who have never tailgated in the grassy, unpaved parking area or who have never partied on the lawn, it might be hard to understand the mystique of seeing a concert amid the cornfields. \n"It makes you feel like you're part of something," Signore said.\nIf the land is sold to make way for housing or other development, that could provide opportunities for other music venues to fill the void, said Aaron Wells, a resident of Spencer, Ind., who traveled with a group of friends to the concert. If a large outdoor venue could be built closer to downtown, people could go to dinner or do other activities, Wells said.\nThe Lawn at White River State Park is the outdoor music venue closest to downtown Indianapolis and is also owned by Live Nation. Recently, renovations were made to The Lawn to "test the waters" for possible future changes, said Alex Umlauf, an executive assistant at White River State Park. The changes added about 800 terraced seats, expanding the venue's capacity to about 8,000 without chairs, Umlauf said.\nIf Verizon is closed down, White River State Park would be the next-largest outdoor destination for Indiana concert-goers.\n"It's all speculation obviously, but in my opinion we would be the premier venue for the state," Umlauf said.\nWells and his friends, however, agreed that the "mystique" of the Noblesville venue could not be recreated anywhere.\n"I'm going to be sad," he said. "As a music teacher, I obviously want a place where music is promoted, and this place is great about that"