The Brown County Music Center was the first business to shut its doors when COVID-19 hit Indiana and it will be among the last to open.
So, how has the 2,000-seat music venue survived a year without live music?
That’s what U.S. Sen. Mike Braun wanted to hear about when he visited the music center on April 1. Braun walked with BCMC Executive Director Christian Webb on a tour of the music venue. Members of the management group were also in attendance along with Audience Services Manager Andrea Swift-Hanlon.
Webb told Braun about the success of the government-owned music venue before it was forced to close. During the nearly 200 days the brand-new attraction was able to operate, the BCMC welcomed 52,000 people through its doors. Those visitors booked up local hotel rooms or rented cabins, and filled tables at restaurants with waiting lists.
Country legend Vince Gill played the first show at BCMC in August 2019. From there, news spread about this new venue nestled in the hills of Brown County as managers and artists spoke to each other. Another country legend, Tanya Tucker, took the stage that September. Soon, the music center had a sold-out Willie Nelson show on the books for 2020 with a line of people waiting when tickets went on sale. Other big names were announced, like Melissa Etheridge and Martina McBride.
“It was a boom,” Webb said.
Then came the pandemic, putting all those 2020 shows on hold.
The music center did the “pandemic pivot” to become a site for jury trials, government meetings and a satellite office of the Brown County Health Department. The health department is currently operating the COVID-19 testing and vaccine clinic in the music center’s lobby.
Because of that pivot, the music center received $239,000 in rent per a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the county commissioners and the music center for the county using the building to hold jury trials and other functions. The music center also had an MOU with the commissioners and the Brown County Health Department. Compensation for that MOU was set at $20,000 and came from grant funding last year, not from the CARES Act.
The MOU and the price for using the music center this year for the testing and vaccine clinic has not yet been finalized.
In 2020, the music center received more than $120,000 in grant funding to help cover costs, including $72,600 from the Paycheck Protection Program.
The music center also applied for a portion of new $10 billion in
federal grant funding made available to independent music venues across the country this month. The Shuttered Venue Operators grant program was approved as part of the recent COVID-19 stimulus package. Based on the grant’s formula, the BCMC is eligible for up to $1.9 million, but the exact amount to be received is not yet known.
Webb told Braun the music center is losing thousands on overhead costs even with a staff of three who have all taken pay cuts. It costs about $35,000 a month to pay staff, utilities and insurance.
Webb said the various grants and CARES Act funding helped them make it this far, along with ticket sales from shows already on the schedule. Live music is expected to returning to the venue by the end of the third quarter this year and more shows are being announced soon.
“The best thing we can do is fight and survive,” Webb said.
The shows set to happen later this year will be sold at full capacity.
Webb said that the past year also allowed for the music center to restructure staffing, and some employees will have to work more once the doors open to ensure success.
A positive about this pandemic is that artists are eager to get out and perform. There have been no cancellations from the venue’s 2020 schedule, Webb said.
“We feel really positive about it. We’re excited,” he said.
Braun asked about the ownership of the venue. The county commissioners own the facility, but entered into an administrative agreement with the management group, commissioner Diana Biddle explained.
Biddle also spoke about the history of the venue and how the vision for it began the night the Little Nashville Opry burned down in 2009, when Doug Harden sketched a replacement venue on a napkin. Once management group co-president Barry Herring was appointed to the Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission, the idea of funding a replacement venue with innkeepers tax took off from there.
“It is for tourists, by tourists,” Biddle said.
The CVC manages the innkeepers tax, a 5-percent tax on overnight room rentals in the county.
Braun said that the management group did a “hell of a job” in securing a $12.5 million loan with the innkeepers tax as backup if the music center did not make enough in profits to cover mortgage payments.
The innkeepers tax has been used to pay the mortgage payments on the music center. The venue will be required to pay interest only until the end of 2021, which is about $37,000 a month.
Last April, when not as many visitors were coming to the county and paying the innkeepers tax due to the pandemic, the Brown County Council also approved transferring $150,000 from the county’s motor vehicle highway fund to a special line in the county’s general fund to pay the mortgage. The $150,000 was paid back to the county from the innkeepers tax fund at the end of last year.
Unlike the Little Nashville Opry, which had live music from March to November, the music center is eager to fill up an entire calendar year once it’s deemed safe to do so and start bringing in more money to cover expenses, Webb said
For 2021, the forecast budget has the music center earning $77,875 in profit if more than 50 shows on the books happen. The $77,000 in profit is projected after the music center pays the interest-only mortgage payments and more than $2.6 million in expenses.
“You know you have something working,” Braun said.
“You just need to get open.”
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For information on upcoming shows, check the Brown County Music Center’s website at www.browncountymusiccenter.com or their Facebook page @BrownCountyMusicCenter.
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John Hiatt and the Jerry Douglas Band will play at the Brown County Music Center Thursday, Nov. 11. Tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, April 16 at browncountymusiccenter.com and at ticketmaster.com. Tickets also can be purchased at the Brown County Music Center’s walk-up window at 200 Maple Leaf Boulevard.
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