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124 maconmagazine.com | June/July 2024 ABOVE Opening act Black Stone Cherry shows Macon is ready to rock - and rap, and R&B, and much more. really good bands in Macon would probably mean one of them wouldn't survive, and it would be kind of a one or the other type thing. So to see places like the Garden, like Grant's Lounge, like JBA, to be able to coexist along with a venue like the amphitheater – wow. The Society Garden had a sold-out show on the same night as the amphitheater had their highest attendance. I think that speaks volumes for our music scene and what it can do. We've got so many people coming to Macon from other areas to hear music that there's just plenty to go around. And that makes it a lot easier to be a music venue owner." In the end, Evans felt supported by the county and its institutions through the P&Z hearing, noting that staff were extremely helpful in showing him steps to take to get into compliance and that Mayor Miller called him to talk amidst the issue. But Evans originally felt blindsided by the complaint and how zoning and business rules are applied across different venues. Much like how building an amphitheater is really about the tax digest, how a Saturday night show at the Garden is affected by zoning can feel opaque to music fans. It's all part of the music ecosystem, according to Sound Diplomacy: Like in nature, this ecosystem is formed by a group of stakeholders, a set of resources, and an environment where they [interdependently interconnect] ... In the case of music, these agents are responsible for everything related to music, A B E H I N D T H E S C E N E S V I E W But what is a music ecosystem, anyway – and how did this project come to be? According to Julie Wilkerson, director of Macon Arts Alliance and one of the three local voices behind the Sound Diplomacy study, they saw the growth coming even before the recent renaissance. Wilkerson pointed to the Society Garden, opened in 2017, as emblematic of the need for a plan. The venue recently went through a publicized planning and zoning (P&Z) debate addressing their expansion over the past five years, as the spot in the small Ingleside Village commercial strip became more popular. "How do you deal with that growth? Because all of Macon is growing that fast," explained Wilkerson. "There are people who say, we want a music district, let's just plop it here. But when we did a little music charette, venue owners were saying that they aren't selling out, so we aren't real interested in 25 million new things. What we need is a plan." Wilkerson enlisted Gary Wheat from Visit Macon and Larry Brumley of Mercer University (See page 82) to build a music plan, hiring Sound Diplomacy to host roundtable discussions and write an assessment to guide future growth. Brad Evans, co-owner and founder of the Society Garden, along with his spouse, Meagan, has been a champion for the growth – and believes that it can only happen collaboratively. From his perspective, "I think 20 years ago, the thought of having two really,