Macon Magazine

June/July 2024 | maconmagazine.com 123 amphitheater dedication. This money can provide more essential services to Maconites, from mental health to municipal waste, while easing their own tax burdens due to lowered property taxes. These efforts have been part of Mayor Lester Miller's vision for the county, passing a voter-supported OLOST in 2021 that added a penny sales tax to each dollar (which is more likely to impact visitors than residents, said Miller, citing that visitors pay 70% of local sales taxes). This has resulted in a 2025 county budget of over $200 million, the largest on record, but with an over 50% decrease in the millage rate for property taxes since 2021. Miller says music and other tourism make this possible. "If we give them that money back, we know they're going to buy local, and they're going to keep helping out community. We're going to continue to grow," Mayor Miller said. That growth is made from the sales tax, sure, but also from the jobs that these local entities support. The security staff checking your bag before you walk in the door, or the food truck operator handing you a basket of fries? Their hours on the clock weren't available a year ago. Visit Macon, the county's designated tourism agency, agrees. During the 2024 State of the Community address, the agency shared that $14 million had been raised from hotel taxes, a year-over- year increase. And according to both Visit Macon and outside experts, there's room to grow. The musical assets in Macon are uniquely rich, according to Sound Diplomacy, a London-based music consulting group brought in to study Macon as a music city. In their assessment, Macon ranks second in both the number of recording studios and live music venues available of all the municipalities they've studied. This is "great infrastructure," according to a headline on their 2022 assessment. In fact, Sound Diplomacy says in their asset mapping that Macon's music ecosystem has a total of 249 assets, which equals about one asset in each square mile. That's a lot to capitalize on, and plenty of players are ready to pounce. T he re-ignition of Macon's music scene has gone full throttle in the past few years, with a dizzying increase in homegrown musicians, national tours, and venues. Just looking at Macon's skyline, one can see a massive difference from a quarter century ago at a bird's eye view. But as we're "movin' on up" in articulating a vision as a music city, Macon looks to better shape its music ecosystem. With more venues and cultural tourism than ever, keeping the beat is a delicate balance. The once dilapidated Capricorn Studios, The Douglass Theatre, and The Capitol Theatre have been restored to rock again. Major houses like The Grand Opera House, Macon City Auditorium, and Macon Coliseum have come under fresh management (the former with Mercer University, the latter two with international venue brand OVG360) to breathe new life into old spaces. Small entrepreneurs have made big waves with bar and entertainment concepts like JBA and Society Garden, which promise a show almost every night. And this year, the speakers turned up louder than ever when Atrium Health Amphitheater opened its doors, welcoming the largest crowds for music Macon has ever seen as the second largest amphitheater in the state of Georgia. The front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution proclaimed the project to be "Macon's bodacious bet on itself," noting that the area by the Macon Mall was fading. New pockets for music- making continue to be built, like the upcoming Otis Redding Center for the Arts or the soon-to-be event center associated with the Big House. Even Grant's Lounge, a mainstay in Downtown Macon for over 50 years, symbolizes this change with a fresh coat of paint and an influx of artists after a recent renovation. But with so much cultural development from a number of players, what will Macon do to keep the beat – so that the economic development engine's roar doesn't turn into just noise? B Y T H E N U M B E R S The investment by public, private, and nonprofit actors in entertainment can generate tourism spending in Macon-Bibb County, which translates into a recipe for success for local citizens with greater tax revenue paid by visitors, explained Mayor Miller at an A patron displays their ticket for the amphitheater's soft opening. Lynyrd Skynyrd at the opening concert of the amphitheater this March.

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