Ridglea Metalfest 2018,

Jeff Ogle

My name is Jeff Ogle, I am a successful business owner, father and family man in Fort Worth, TX. I have been involved in Ridglea Theater since around 2000, booking shows and festivals for former owners Wesley Hathaway, and Richard Van Zandt. My band Lockjaw headlined and hosted festival type events for many national and local acts over our 20 year history. We devleoped the 3 stage festival concept in order to bring national and local acts together, in order to help developement of the local scene, not only for locals to gain exposure, but to gain exposre in the scene overall. We have always had a good realtionship with the local rock station 97.1 The Eagle owned by Clear Channel, and now by Iheartmedia. We started Ridglea Metalfest as DFW Metalfest, and then it grew to Ridglea Metalfest after promoter Ted Cromer, helped Wesley and Richard in brining national talent to the historic stage. At that time there was only one main auditorum, with no balcony. Since Wesley and Richard, a new owner, Jerry Schults purchsed the complex, and did a major remodel, adding 2 new venues to the already huge space. The venue now has state of the art lighting and sound, with 3 amazing rooms for bands to perform, with any size crowd. The community really missed the Fort Worth, Rock and Metal scene since Ridglea was down for several years due to zoning, policital, and remodel issues. Due to my own business and family obligations, our band stopped touring around 2008, taking a long break. In 2016 we had the opportunity to play a show for a close family friend diagnosed with cancer raising aproximately 4k for his treatment, and in 2017 longtime friend Wesley Hathaway former owner of Ridglea Theater passed away also from cancer. This made me decide life is short, and to play a show a year, and do it bigger than i had ever had the means to before. My company has been successful and put me in a different place to be able to do some things that I love again, and I made my own personal investments into this show, from artist guarantees, art and video development to social media and radio marketing. I have skin in the game, and im in it to win it. I will push my sponsors based on each respective package to the max and make sure everyone has a good experience. We have appointed a RMF committee, comprised of former venue owners, promoters, business owners, lighting and sound guys, and marketing experts to make this show successful for us and our advertising sponsors. We are projected to sell out at this point. Each local band will be participaing in presale with promo codes giving them credit, to help determine stage slot. The bands are carefully picked, with current draw in mind, to make sure that we give some great bands a chance to shine on the national stage. Thank you again for considering us for this partnership!

Jeff