BarnBurner plans a show a month and more in '24

Details: Lance Martin; News; 29 December 2023; 4950

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While Sunday’s New Year’s Eve party will be the last event of the year at Weldon Mills Theatre, Julie Powell and Allison Askew of BarnBurner Promotions are busy booking acts for the upcoming year.

Some of the 2024 acts have already been revealed — Clint Black, Travis Tritt and 38 Special.

Some, however, remain under wraps until all the details have been worked out.

Sunday’s event with DJ Dank will have a mic drop instead of a ball drop to usher in the new year, Powell said. “We’ll have the money shooter every hour. It might be a coupon for a free drink, it might be a coupon for $5 off a ticket.”

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Then there will be a champagne toast at midnight along with party favors and hors d'oeuvres

“We’ve got a lot we’re still waiting to come down the pike,” Powell said. “This is just a time where Nashville basically closes for a month and we’re just waiting for them to get themselves together and come back on some of the offers.”

While they weren’t in a position to divulge the names, Askew said, “I would just say there’s some bigger names that have not been here before that people will be shocked and excited to see.”

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The one show Powell said she is free to discuss is The Girls Night Out male revue which is scheduled for May 10. “They approached us,” she said. “We had done one a few years back at The Mystique.”

Said Askew: “It was a blast when we did it at The Mystique.”

Askew said the plan in 2024 is to have at least one show a month, Powell adding, “It will be more come spring into fall but right this minute we’ve got something on the books for every month so far minus January and February with multiples in certain other months.”

While things are going the way they’ve wanted it to go, Powell says the road to booking hasn’t been easy. “It’s been hard because it’s been us doing everything — all the decorating. It’s a lot but we’ve got my daughter Hannah and we’ve got McKenzie (Dunlow) here too so between me, Hannah, McKenzie and Allison we’re basically holding the fort down every day.”

Powell said the plans are to have a second NC Bourbon Festival in the fall of 2024 with further plans of having a spring and a fall festival in 2025.

Askew said the first Bourbon Festival, with acts outside and later inside the venue, exceeded expectations.

While Powell and Askew deferred questions about future plans to theater owner Bruce Tyler, she did confirm, as Tyler did, plans for the former outdoor venue near the theater. “I can’t wait until we can clear the old amphitheater site and start doing outdoor shows.”

Powell, like Tyler, said she didn’t have a timeline but it is going to happen. “It will have the BarnBurner touch,” Powell said. “It will be similar to how it was before.”

She said there is the potential for 20,000 concert-goes at the outdoor venue. “That’s where you can bring in the half-a-million dollar artists.”

Powell said most have been supportive since Tyler bought the venue. “They’re all eager to see what’s going to happen and what shows we’re bringing.”

Askew said people have let her and Powell know they’re glad BarnBurner was back “because of the way we run things and do things. It’s just not a show, it’s an experience as well.”

Powell and Askew began working to get the venue back in shape, starting in the back. “We decided we wanted the back hall to be done … because that’s where the artists come in from.”

While it hasn’t been completed they have modified a little bit of everything, Powell said, mainly the hall and greenroom. “We have worked more than I even care to remember on this stuff — painting and pulling out records.”

Those records, album covers and posters now adorn the walls throughout the lobby, upstairs, the VIP boxes and in the back hallways whereas in the early days the decorations could be described as sparse.

“We’re just trying to combine music history and give it an artsy vibe,” Askew said.

Now the six VIP boxes will be branded through two options — naming rights or a business or individual can get an entire box with naming rights for the whole year.

All the work, Powell and Askew said, is an indication they are in this for the long haul. “We’re staying,” Powell said.

The new ownership is what the theater needed, said Powell. “Somebody said it’s more inviting but it’s also more modern. It’s a totally different vibe. It doesn’t feel like stale 2007 anymore.”

“It seems like a big future,” Askew said.

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