Macon Magazine

June/July 2024 | maconmagazine.com 125 LEFT AND BELOW Hubble Beasley at Grant's Lounge. Photo by Jesse Horton, courtesy of Moonhanger Group. Julie Wilkerson speaks at a public event. Photo courtesy of Macon Arts Alliance. Brad and Meagan Evans are pictured at Society Garden. Photo courtesy of Society Garden. starting from the artists and going all the way to the audience. Some of its elements, like music venues or labels, are obvious. But some others aren't, like IT suppliers, police officers, or government organizations. Yet they are all relevant and play an important role in the chain. For a music city like Macon to be successful, Sound Diplomacy believes all the agents must be resourced, connected, and supported by the town's institutions. Those agents include professionals like Hubble Beasley, the general manager of The Capitol Theatre and Grant's Lounge. As a full-time music worker, Beasley can often be seen running down Second Street between the two venues to support a show, and he knows firsthand the difficulties in managing the artist-to-audience continuum. "The main thing we need," he said, "is financial support to help not only bring the artists to Macon but to keep the ones we have here." As a venue operator, Evans points to safety and security as a challenge that worries him. "A big hurdle that we have in making music is people are still a little bit afraid of it in Macon. We can't afford for bad things to happen," he noted, adding that his team is regularly thinking about security for crowds and preventing violence. Lisa Love previously ran the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and currently serves as the Executive Director for Georgia Music Foundation. Her conclusions take another view, worrying about attendance: "One word – well, two words. It's audience development," Love explained. "It's hard to be a JBA or a Grant's or a Grand." Love also expressed that Macon needs to become a place where original creators can thrive rather than cover bands or event musicians. That audience development is part of creating sustainability, Sam Stephens believes. A multimedia music journalist, Stephens believes audience loyalty is important. "The [casual] way we consume music nowadays … affects live music as well. [But] when something is good here, you need to go regularly." Each of the cultural workers interviewed here about their perspective didn't have anything to say for the music study, having either not read its findings yet or been asked to participate. All were additionally asked how they felt about the impact of the amphitheater on their line of work, with many seeing it as an opportunity. "I'm excited about the amphitheater," Beasley said. "We [Moonhanger Group] produced the Turnpike Troubadours show there, and it was a huge success." Evans added, "I think a lot of people come out here before they go to the show there. So I think it's just been a good thing overall. I don't know how anyone could look at that full parking lot and say it's a bad thing." A P R E S C R I P T I O N F O R S TAY I N G I N H A R M O N Y Released in the spring of 2024, Wilkerson presented the Macon Music Strategy to the Macon-Bibb County Commission along with its findings. This second phase of the Sound Diplomacy study, following the asset mapping released in phase one in 2022, meant to answer the questions and challenges of these cultural stakeholders with action steps. Many of the concerns mentioned, like nightlife safety or audience development, were the same as mentioned above. "So probably the biggest thing is we have a fabulous music history. We have a lot of quality artists. We have a lot of venues, and we have a lot of different size venues, so we have a lot more opportunity than a lot of other music cities," Wilkerson said. "We are missing some of the music business backend that will help the artists that are here now go to another level." This backend means support for managing, promoting, publishing, and recording artists, as well W h a t i s a m u s i c e c o s y s t e m , a n y w a y ?

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