Bank is Booming: Bragg Jam 2018
For Bragg Jam regulars and Bragg Jam rookies, this year’s 20th Bragg Jam celebrated a handful of firsts. The fun-filled weekend introduced its first paid event employee, first Friday concert crawl, and first Open Air Market to Macon. Since my first Bragg Jam, I’ve witnessed numbers of guests from across Georgia increase to attend each year. Has Bragg Jam’s development marked a financial fingerprint onto the Macon community? Bragg Jam Marketing Co-Chair Leila Regan-Porter discusses Bragg Jam’s role in attracting visitors for art, culture, and entertainment to support the local economy.
C: What are the economic goals of Bragg Jam?
L: While our first economic goal is to make enough to cover our costs, we also strive to be a financially stable organization. This means looking forward to our future years, and to ensure that Bragg Jam is always viably secure, we have invested in an endowment at the Community Foundation of Central Georgia. We have also arrived at a place where we can afford to hire our first paid employee, a part-time executive assistant, who started this year. Before this point, we have always been a non-profit made up of an all-volunteer board. Bragg Jam’s goal is also to keep donating money raised from the festival to causes that were dear to the Bragg brothers’ hearts, like the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail. To date, Bragg Jam has donated over $200,000 to such causes.
C: What is the economic impact of this year’s Bragg Jam in comparison to that of previous years?
L: This was Bragg Jam’s first year with a full concert crawl on Friday night, at five venues, with 15 venues on Saturday night. Last year was our first attempt at having a concert on Friday night, and it was a huge sold-out success, so we naturally decided to expand again this year. Having two nights of full music means that the number of overnight, out-of-town visitors will rise, resulting in higher economic impact for our entire tourism industry, from restaurants and bars to museums and hotels.
C: Do you have any estimates for the number of attendees, tickets sold, vendors, volunteers, etcetera?
L: Not at this time. As mentioned, we are an all-volunteer board with one part time employee, and so for most of us it was back to our day jobs on Monday, and we have not processed all of this information. We did, however, have over 80 bands and over 90 individual performances, and expanded the Arts and Kids Fest to include the Open Air Market with over 70 vendors with arts, crafts, food trucks, and a book signing by Julie Bragg.
C: What contributes to Bragg Jam ticket prices gradually increasing throughout the years?
L: We have consistently brought more artists almost every year, and higher caliber of artists too, and the cost of entertainment has been rising, especially with music festivals becoming more popular and artists being more difficult to secure. We believe in paying for all of our musical acts, and never ask anyone to play for free. We also try to keep some of our events open and free to the public, like the Arts & Kids Fest and several venues (like Bearfoot Beer Garden, Taste & See Coffee Shop, Gallery West, and Piedmont Brewing Company), but we still pay the acts that play there, of course.
Bragg Jam also seeks ways to make our events more streamlined, like having a centralized ticketing system run by professionals, so we can get our ticket holders through lines quicker and into the music. As I’ve mentioned, all money raised has gone to local causes, and we’ve only just now made the leap to having an employee, who is still part time. General costs, such as marketing, shuttles, security, accommodations for artists, have all risen, as everything has, and so naturally the ticket price reflects that. But the costs of tickets are still astonishingly low compared to other music festivals of this size, and indeed most festivals in general.
C: AthFest is also a summer concert crawl with similar economic goals in a college town. What makes Bragg Jam comparable to AthFest?
L: While Macon is a college town, we are definitely not a college town on the same scale as Athens and the University of Georgia. AthFest and Bragg Jam are comparable in that we strive to showcase the music and arts in our city, we’re both centered downtown, we’re both organized by groups of people passionate about our city and the arts, and we create a vibrant community festival to locals and visitors. Bragg Jam’s board is wholly responsible for booking and paying all of its artists, not the venues or other entities, which makes for a slightly different experience. Bragg Jam is first and foremost a concert crawl that highlights our local venues. While we do also show off as much of our local talent as possible, unlike AthFest, we also bring in acts from across the country, so we do have a different array of artists. We have a focus on bringing in regional and national talent that is on the up and up, along with showcasing the many local musicians we have to offer.
Macon has expanded artistically, culturally, and musically. Bragg Jam demonstrates that all three of these expansions constitute the local economy. As a result, the 20 years of developments have led to the many firsts Leila mentioned. Because of Bragg Jam’s ongoing success, I only anticipate more growth in the future.
Sunny in the southern sunshine,
Cat
