Earlier this month, the Brown County Music Center put on its first sold out show of the year when Bobby Weir and the Wolf Brothers featuring the Wolfpack graced the stage at the 2,000-seat venue.
The band performs songs from the Grateful Dead’s catalog along with music from Weir’s solo albums, touring throughout the country. That show on March 19 and the Weird Al Yankovic show in May are two of the bigger names set to perform at the music center this year.
Since reopening its doors on Sept. 11 the music center had 27 shows with almost 27,000 tickets sold, Executive Director Christian Webb reported to the Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission on March 10.
After the music center reopened, Webb said he spent a lot of time out front of the venue helping oversee the health checks before shows and that gave him an opportunity to talk to with many audience members. He would ask them where they are from and if they were staying in town, which then led to Webb pulling data of tickets sold to residents in surrounding counties, including Brown, compared to other areas in and out of the state.
Of the nearly 27,000 tickets sold for shows up until March 5 more than 11,500 tickets were sold to residents in Bartholomew, Jackson, Jennings, Johnson, Lawrence, Monroe, Morgan, Brown and Marion counties.
Webb said the residents in those “doughnut counties” may not stay overnight in Brown County for shows, which would add to the innkeepers tax that was pledged as a back up revenue source for the music center in the event there was not enough operating revenue to pay mortgage payments. The CVC manages the innkeepers tax, a 5% tax on overnight room rentals in Brown County.
But an additional 15,000 tickets were sold to residents in other Indiana counties and out of state who are more likely to stay overnight and eat locally.
The music center has sold 18,582 tickets to shows scheduled for March 10 through Dec. 31 this year with more performances to be announced.
Webb said over 18,000 tickets sold equals about $1.1 million in sales for the music center.
Looking ahead to 2022, Webb said the ticket data became more “skewed” with more tickets being sold to those outside of the “doughnut counties” and who live out of state. He attributed that to names like Weir and Yankovic who draw fans from across the country.
“I personally know many people coming from Florida, South Carolina, California for those shows. I think it’s really interesting because it’s hard to truly say ‘Do 8,000 of these people stay the night?’ as we go forward, but the likelihood, I would imagine, is that if you don’t live close you’re staying somewhere within the market,” Webb said.
The music center also recently rolled back its COVID-19 health check policies for the venue after working with the Brown County Health Department and looking at what other venues were doing.
To ensure that artists were comfortable with the decision, the music center has allowed them to decide if they want to keep health check policies are not for their shows. Webb said earlier this month only four shows were undecided on if health checks would be required and three would keep the restrictions. The other 12 shows had already removed their restrictions.
News of the health check policy change hit social media the afternoon of March 9. That same afternoon the box office sold 26 tickets in the first 35 minutes of the post going up on social media.
“We immediately had phone calls for a couple of shows. ‘Just saw you’re pulling restrictions, I want to buy tickets.,’” Webb said.
Updates on health check policies for shows will be shared to the music center’s website at browncountymusiccenter.com. Visit the website for more information on upcoming shows and to purchase tickets.
