"No-money fun" helps create youthful, happy cities...

To quote comedian Mike Myers talking about his childhood when asked about the inspiration for Wayne's World, "The best kind of fun is no-money fun." In school, we learned about internal brand leadership within a company, and how memorable rewards are great ways of building the culture of your company around the brand's values. I think the same concept can be applied to cities that want to attract young people to settle down in an area.

Every summer on Brown's Island in Richmond, Virginia, there are weekly free concerts on Friday afternoons from 5pm-10pm. The event is called Friday Cheers. Brown's Island is one of the most beautiful parts of Richmond, where you can lay out on the grass and look out on the James River, which runs right through the downtown area of the city. Whether you are working in the Financial District or Shockoe Bottom (the "creative business area", which includes the Adcenter, the Martin Agency, and many design firms), when Friday at 5pm comes along and you're ready to unwind, you are only a 5 or 10 minute walk to Brown's Island. When you get there, you get to enjoy listening to some pretty big name bands such as Keller Williams, The Black Crowes, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and others, and you don't have to pay a dime. (Of course, mostly everyone buys a few beers and some food, so the vendors and the city make some revenue, which I'm assuming pays for the band).

I guarantee that the city of Richmond loses money on this every week, yet they have had Friday Cheers for many years, and it has become a staple of summertime in Richmond. This is a great example of "internal brand leadership" for the brand of Downtown Richmond. Richmond wants young workers to be attracted to the city so that the job market stays competitive and the local economy can continue to thrive. Richmond also wants these young workers to live in the city, not the suburbs, so that the quality of life in the city remains young, diverse, and crime-free. Finally, Richmond wants all workers to stay in the downtown area on Fridays after they get off work so that the restaurants and bars can make money, helping the local economy as well.

Friday Cheers is a great answer to all of these questions! If I'm a music fan (or I just like to unwind on Friday afternoons in the summertime), I would love to go to a free concert with my co-workers and friends that is within walking distance of my office. And after the show ends at 10pm, I'm not going to go all the way back home to the suburbs to change clothes and/or end my night's fun. Instead, I'm going to take the 5 minute walk back into the downtown area to a restaurant or bar and go catch a late dinner and drinks. If I know that there is all this fun in the downtown area, I'm going to want to move downtown so I can be near everything, instead of having the hassle of going out to the suburbs with only the possibility of coming back to meet my friends later.

If Friday Cheers even cost $5, they would only get half of the crowd they get now. Only the people who actually were fans of the particular band that day would come. Everyone else would go home or just go to happy hour for an hour before heading back to the suburbs. But Richmond decided that it could excite its citizens by rewarding them for a hard week's work with some no-money fun right downtown.

Last summer I went almost every week. I love living in the city, and not the suburbs, because things are always happening. I just enjoyed my first Friday Cheers this past Friday when Keller Williams was in town. I'm looking forward to some great times having no-money fun on Brown's Island all summer. And I love Richmond for it.