The Brown County Music Center is heading into 2020 with country legend Willie Nelson on the schedule, more than 20,000 tickets sold already this year, and a new executive director who has a goal to bring even more visitors to Brown County.
At the music venue’s Jan. 14 management group meeting, it was announced that former BCMC Executive Director Dana Beth Evans had resigned in early December. The management group had not met since November.
Evans submitted her resignation letter the week of Dec. 13. She had been executive director since November 2018. The 2,000-seat music venue opened in August last year with a sold-out Vince Gill show.
No reason for why she was leaving was given in Evans’ letter of resignation. It stated, “I resign,” management group Co-President Kevin Ault said.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]The Democrat reached out to Evans for a comment for this story, but did not receive a response by deadline.
When the management group became aware that Evans was leaving, they contacted Live Nation to help find a replacement. “We just called and said, ‘Hey, we need somebody and we need somebody now.’
“They said, ‘We’ve got a guy,’” Ault said.
That guy was Christian Webb.
His first official day in the building was Dec. 17. He agreed to a 90-day trial period before he will be able to take over as the executive director officially.
“He’s got everything,” Ault said. “Had he been an applicant when we were first hiring, he would have been the one.”
Webb managed the Old National Centre in Indianapolis for six years, which has multiple spaces for events including a 2,600-seat performing arts theater and an 1,800-seat concert hall.
He ended up creating an exit plan with Live Nation last March to step away from that role and help his parents deal with some medical issues after they moved to Indianapolis.
“That was kind of a big change and a big move in kind of life, but my family is everything, and quite frankly, I wouldn’t have anything in my life it wasn’t for my family,” Webb said.
After helping his parents settle into their new home and getting home healthcare set up for them, Webb decided to get back out in the workforce. That’s when he was introduced to management group Co-President Barry Herring through Live Nation.
“As the venue was explained to me, what they are looking for and some of my past experiences just kind of really seemed to fit,” Webb said.
“Seeing what they had here and seeing this beautiful venue and this beautiful town and the Brown County area, and understanding the corporate vision and mission statement, it was just an opportunity I really got excited about.”
Experienced director
Webb lived all around the world — from Japan to Virginia — growing up in a military family.
But he calls San Diego, California home. He attended high school and college there. He stayed there another eight years working as the stadium operations manager for the then-San Diego Chargers football team, running operations for what was then called Qualcomm Stadium.
He received his bachelor’s degree in business administration management in 2000 from the University of San Diego.
After seven years working for the Chargers, Webb moved to Los Angeles to work for Anschutz Entertainment Group as the event manager at the former Home Depot Center from 2007 to 2010, then as the senior venue manager from 2010 to 2013. The venue is now the {span}Dignity Health Sports Park.
“I handled all front-of-house operations, leading production meetings, organizing staff, dealing with all of the staffing levels and the budgets,” he said.
The facility has four stadiums in Carson, California. Webb was in charge of the soccer and tennis stadiums there. Webb was there when soccer player David Beckham came to play for the LA Galaxy, who played at the complex.
He also helped to run a Super Bowl at that venue.
After seven years in LA, Live Nation called Webb, wanting him to be the general manager at Old National Centre in Indianapolis in 2013. Webb and his wife had just welcomed a baby. They were not wanting to raise their baby in LA and had family in the Midwest, so they decided to move to Indianapolis.
Webb said he is hoping to be kept on as executive director after the 90-day period. He said if he is named executive director, his family would move to Brown County.
Educating the staff and volunteers on policies and procedures related to security and other issues is something Webb plans to do this year.
“It starts as simple as the credentialing process, bringing it up to policies and procedures of what’s acceptable and what’s not. Some of the staff or the volunteers try to sneak backstage and get a glimpse of the artist. That’s a big no-no. That’s not something you should do,” he said.
He also hopes to increase the parking at the venue.
At the Jan. 14, management group meeting, the possibility of getting out of an emerging wetland designation for part of the parking area was discussed, which would result in more parking being available at the venue and no need for shuttles. More will be known in February.
“The fact we offer free parking when 98 percent of other music venues and sports venues all charge for parking, you really think about the value-added things. … If we can kind of finish the parking lot, it really gives us the opportunity to give our guests a better experience,” Webb said.
Webb said it will also be important for the team to understand how funding the music center works, including understanding profit and loss statements.
“It’s not as simple as saying, ‘We need this; let’s buy this,’” he said.
“People need to understand the ‘why’ behind it. People can look at our ledger statement and say, ‘You have $1 million in cash sitting in the bank.’ We do, because we have all of these tickets sold, but that’s not realized money. We have the money, but it doesn’t become real until that event happens.”
Webb said the common denominator he has found in the building among the volunteers and everyone else involved is that everyone cares.
“When you’re leading people and everyone has that same mentality and they all care, it makes everything easier,” he said.
“It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take work to get us to where we need to be, but if everyone has that vision, it makes it easier in the long run.”
Looking ahead
Webb said the goal for 2020 is to get more people here, “continue to grow what we do and continue to put more people here, to have more eyes and visitors in the Brown County area,” he said.
Last year, 32,000 tickets were sold for shows. As of last week, the venue had already sold 21,500 tickets, which did not include tickets sold for Willie Nelson’s show on Tuesday, April 28. Tickets went on sale last Friday, Jan. 17.
Webb said that Martina McBride also will play the BCMC this year; when tickets will go on sale for that show hasn’t been announced.
In 2020, BCMC guests can expect a “quality customer service experience,” Webb said.
“What we do here is we give experiences and we create memories. That’s what we want to do,” he said.
Everyone — from the volunteers to management group members — needs to understand that attending a show at BCMC is not something people have to do. That’s important for customer service, he said.
“People spend their hard-earned discretionary income to come to an event,” Webb said. “We need to remember that, because without the guests coming and supporting this venue, we, myself included, don’t have jobs, No. 1. Customer service has to be the focus.”
Also in 2020, guests can expect improved outdoor facilities, including family-friendly activities like corn hole, and playground equipment. Currently, the outdoor fenced-in areas are used for smoke breaks during shows.
Inside the venue itself, Webb plans to offer a mixture of performances on stage.
“I think it has been very proven that country is great here, but there’s a lot more in this world to country. There’s comedy. There’s political comedy, satirical comedy, there’s hip hop and there’s things we need to experiment,” he said.
Having “The Price Is Right” at the BCMC in March is another example of a diverse offering for the venue.
“I really hope we find something for everyone,” he said.
He also wants to look into having more shows for children, like a “PJ Masks” or “Sesame Street” show.
Webb said, this year, he will work on changing the mindset that the music center is not a formal theater. “We are a music venue, and that music venue incorporates everything. With that comes a little bit in the changing of the way we have to think about things,” he said.
He also plans to meet with Playhouse Assistant Executive Director Hannah Estabrook to begin a partnership with that venue, “make sure she knows we should be partners in this. There’s no reason anyone in this town should not be all trying to work for the same goal of getting more people here to the Brown County area,” he said.
Overall, Webb is shooting to bring big names to perform in Brown County, such as famed comedians Jerry Seinfeld and the duo of Martin Short and Steve Martin.
“I think when you look at iconic names, a Seinfeld, a Willie Nelson, something like that, that’s what I really want to do to push the needle a little bit … something that people can say, ‘Wow. That’s a really good name.’”
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On Jan. 14, it was announced that Willie Nelson was coming to the Brown County Music Center this spring.
Tickets sold out the morning they went on sale, after a fan club pre-sale took place a couple days earlier.
The line was long outside of the music center the morning Nelson tickets went on sale.
Folks at the front of line were sitting in lawn chairs and wrapped in blankets to keep warm from the cold temps and wind. The venue served up complimentary hot chocolate and coffee for those waiting in line.
Tickets that went on sale nationally through Ticketmaster.com sold out in less than 15 minutes. The venue also had a limited allotment at its box office that allowed them to continue selling tickets until 10:45 a.m. to people waiting in line, executive director Christian Webb said.
At the Jan. 14 management group meeting, members said the venue would not have been able to book Nelson if it was not for their success so far.
“We’re really getting the buzz in the industry,” said Barry Herring, the management group’s co-president.
Co-president Kevin Ault said a lot of the venue’s success should be credited to country artist Vince Gill, who played the first official show at the venue last August to a sold-out crowd.
“He’s gone back after that first show and told people about us,” he said.
Ault said the music center’s first few months surpassed all expectations.
Last year, the music center sold more than 32,000 tickets, bringing in 29,000 guests to the 2,000-seat venue.
More than 5,000 units of food were sold since the opening in August and 27,000 beverages, with water and soda being the top sellers, said Interim Executive Director Christian Webb. Those sales accounted for a little more than $113,000 in revenue for the venue.
The music center is now in the seventh month of operation, and Webb said he and the financial team expect to see a positive financial result in the venue’s fourth quarter at the latest.
The preliminary statement for the venue shows a loss starting in August through December of $145,000, but management group board member Mike Lafferty said the venue’s financial status is better than that.
“In my estimation, there’s more than 200 in there of one-time startup expenses that would not be reoccurring. In actuality, we probably got a little bit of an income this year. I think it’s better than expected,” he said.
“Even though we might have $1 million in our checking account, until we earn that money, it’s not ours,” co-president Kevin Ault explained after the meeting. “Until the show happens, that’s not our money. Even though we sold tickets for Beach Boys, that’s not our money until the show happens. Whatever is left after everyone is paid is ours.”
The venue also made its first semiannual mortgage payment by Dec. 28 for a total of $152,000. To help pay it the Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission used $37,000 of innkeepers tax that had been set aside for that purpose. The innkeepers tax had been pledged as a backup revenue source for the mortgage payments if the venue had not made enough revenue to cover it.
The management group is now working to have those payments be made monthly at $55,000 starting in February. That money would have to come from the music center or innkeepers tax.
In October, the Brown County Council approved an additional appropriation request of $280,000 out of the innkeepers tax fund that Ault requested.
In the summer of 2018 when the 2019 budget was submitted, the CVC had asked for $800,000 in innkeepers tax. Of that amount, $140,000 was set aside to help cover expenses related to the music center, but setting aside that money cut into the Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau’s budget of $712,000, Ault told the council on Oct. 21 last year. Ault said the plan was to use $52,500 of the additional $280,000 to go to lifting the CVB’s budget back up.
Each year, the CVC gives money to the Brown County YMCA’s Hilly Half marathon. This year, the group plans to give $7,500 toward the marathon and an additional $5,000 to the Brown County Playhouse.
At the management group meeting last week, Webb said the music center is working to find other ways to bring in revenue, like having coffee bars at the end of the evening for people waiting on shuttles. Music center staff are also looking at ways to cut expenses.
“We’re looking at everything down to the products that we’re ordering for our trash, for our trash bags and everything,” he said.
“I think we have a lot of areas we can get very tight and hopefully hit some of these areas a little bit quicker than what we’re speaking of here.”
Management group member Diana Biddle said it was important to note that the music center had sold 32,000 tickets last year in four months. When the idea of a music center was first presented, its budget was based on the Little Nashville Opry’s worst ticket selling year, which was 60,000 tickets.
“In four months, we did 32,000 tickets. I think that is absolutely incredible,” she said.
Management group member Jim Schultz said that he and his wife volunteer at as many shows as they can. They try to speak with visitors each time, and he said they are “thrilled” with the new music center.
“I believe we have a beautiful venue here. It is amazing what it can do and how it presents itself,” Webb said.
“I think the true goal now is just to get our arms around the expenses, but then also really get the name out there. We have the Willie date because of the success the venue has had. That’s going to continue.”
Webb said that live music is “one of the last frontiers.”
“It’s not something you can record, it’s not something you can take in. You have to see it. The business model is there, and I believe it’s proven. We are going to continue this growth here in the mix of our shows to keep this area diverse and to keep people coming here to Brown County,” he said.
Nelson and family will play at the music center on Tuesday, April 28.
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