The Arkansas Music Pavilion sits vacant in the southwest corner of the mall parking lot last week. Officials dismantle the stage and tent covering the venue after each season.
Todd Gill, Fayetteville Flyer
The Arkansas Music Pavilion will have a new home, at least for a while.
The outdoor music venue, located in the Northwest Arkansas Mall parking lot for the last seven years, will move its tent and stage to the Washington County Fairgrounds for the 2012 season.
Officials with the Walton Arts Center, which owns the AMP, said unsuccessful short and long-term lease negotiations with the new management of the mall have caused the need for a new location this year, if the season is to be saved.
“It’s important to us, and to Northwest Arkansas, that the AMP host a full season of music and entertainment this summer, and our timeline required that we secure a short term lease quickly,” said Walton Arts Center president Peter Lane in a news release. “We’re delighted to have a signed usage agreement with the Washington County Fairgrounds.”
The arts center’s one-year agreement with the fairgrounds includes an option to renew for an additional year at the end of the term.
“We are thrilled about this new relationship with Walton Arts Center and the AMP because it really gives us the opportunity to expand our programming and provide entertainment to more people,” said Kendall Pendegraft, Washington County Fair Board president.
The fairgrounds are also home to the Washington County Fair and host a variety of events during the annual Bikes, Blues & BBQ festival.
AMP general manager Brian Crowne said he’s confident the venue will still provide a full 2012 season and seemed excited about the new location.
“With the new space at the fairgrounds, it’s possible that we could seat more people and have a larger stage than we did at the mall, while being positioned on the grass rather than a parking lot,” said Crowne.
Aside from a fast-approaching season (Big Gigantic plays April 21), the AMP was also scheduled for a $4 million renovation project at the mall using a $500,000 grant from the Fayetteville Advertising and Promotions Commission. Those plans, too, have stalled.
Arts center officials said while they remain hopeful that a long-term lease will eventually be secured at the mall, they have started to explore other sites for the renovation.
Officials said conversations with the County Fair Board, the City of Fayetteville, the Fayetteville Parks & Recreation offices, as well as private landowners in the area have already begun regarding a permanent location.
Just another reason the City of Fayetteville needs to stop giving our tax dollars to the Walton Arts Center…
Wow, the first comment said it best. We need to STOP giving money to the WAC!!! They have proven time and time again to disappoint Fayetteville, lie to Fayetteville, and then screw Fayetteville. Everything they are involved in or with turns out to be the opposite of how they “sold” it. I’m sure that they are going to give the half a million back to the A&P. There is no way they can consciously keep that money now, right?
Isn’t WAC moving to Bentonville next to Crystal Bridges? So why do they need our money?
Amen. The Walton Art Center is moving off Dickson. Don’t let em fool ya.
I’ve heard the plans are closer to dead rather than stalled.
Seems that it would make more sense to focus on a larger venue for the region as a whole, such as the amphitheater at Osage Creek. I hear that it is still going to be finished.
Osage Creek Will be finished…look for a press release coming very soon…!
Osage creek? LOL!!
Rig it up down in Walker Park.
Not in Walker Park please. Besides which the parks department does not spend money on Walker. We have been asking for trail lights for a couple of years and nary a light.
So this means instead of not going to the mall to see Slayer or Michael McDonald I’ll be not going to the fairgrounds to see Slayer or Michael McDonald?
Osage Creek? Come on man……
The AMP needs to go to the fairgrounds!
Plenty of space, linked to downtown by trail and possible shuttle and a great idea to revitalize a part of th Mill district.
The stockyard grounds not the County Fairgrounds.
@Mullva – I’m loving this idea. Wonder if it has been considered? I would hate to see our city’s largest music venue settle permanently in the mall parking lot. It’s embarrassing. And I’m sure the fairgrounds is temporary at best.
Hey dudes. There’s a construction project going on at the old sale barn property. Soon, it’ll be an apartment complex called The Grove.
Oh. Thanks, Dustin. Well then, I guess Mullva & I are gonna have to hang out at their pool and blast Foreigner on my boombox.
Just what we need, more expensive empty apartments.
The UA actually has a housing shortage right now, and pretty much every apartment complex geared towards students is fully occupied now and has already started preleasing for this coming fall. Based on their website, The Grove definitely seems student orientated so it’s probably safe to assume it won’t sit empty. Still, it would’ve been nice if the sale barn land had been used for something for the greater good of the community. :(
Washington County Fairgrounds would be a great permanant site: plenty of room for permanant and bigger venue, would make use of land that is hardly used throughout the year, would help make the fairgrounds money to update their facilities, and could be used during the fair for concerts or talent show, etc. It is right by the interstate and soon to be linked to the trail system. I think it could be a really good thing to have it there.
Congrats on Fairgrounds re-location for The AMP season of Summer 2012! Great to bring some activity to that county location, and to find an alternative to the Mall that will work for now.
I am excited to see the line-up of bands they bring to The AMP at the Washington County Fairgrounds. The location is large. Think of the possibilities. Dgold, Honest Tunes Radio
I like the Washington County Fairgrounds..It’s about the Music experience.Last time I checked folks buy ticket’s to see the band not to see the Venue.
Red rocks, the gorge, any of the fox or orpheum theaters…mulberry mountain, even. Venue does matter.
GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE!!!!!!!
In my humble, and, admittedly, ignorant opinion, it was wise to move this season’s AMP programming from the mall to the fairgrounds for the following reasons:
1) If the season is already booked, then multiple high-dollar contracts have to be honored.
2) If the AMP’s lease was not renewed with the mall’s new ownership within the allotted window of time in the production schedule, rather than endanger the entire season of programming, it might make financial sense to secure a new, if temporary, venue at which to host these contracted shows.
3) If you need a place in Fayetteville that is somewhat central, open, and easily accessible from the highway, already used for large public events, and willing to sign a single year lease, then you’d be hard pressed to do better than the fairgrounds.
4) If the WAC and AMP grow as an active cultural center here in Fayetteville, then they continue to increase hotel and restaurant revenues to fund the A&P and, therefore, justify the commission’s decision to invest in a large outdoor venue in Fayetteville.
5) If the fairgrounds don’t prove to be the location to build a permanent structure, it sounds like the option remains for the AMP to return to the mall next year, or free to move to another location. Until the new permanent amphitheater is built, the AMP is really a mobile, modular, entertainment venue.
I’ve never read a bunch of more idiotic comments in my life.
Jurisdictionally, WCFG may lie outside Fayetteville but, duh, it’s in Fayetteville.
It’s projected that in the next 5 years WAC will spend nearly $30 million building and investing in FAYETTEVILLE.
Not to mention the marketing dollars spent, the positive business impact to it’s suppliers, vendors, local restaurants, the cultural millieu, etc, etc, etc.
Maybe some of you don’t like it but thousands and thousands do.
The rest of us shouldn’t let clueless ingrates have the last word on this.
I would like to wish this was the case, but look what the WAC’s past history within the last 4 years. Do you remember what happened to the North Arkansas Symphony shortly following its brief merger with the WAC? I do… and the WAC did nothing but killed any hope that our local symphony had to become financially stable. Raising the rental rates to use the concert hall after establishing a new “partnership” and greatly increasing administrative costs took away the only local performance group from our community. The WAC’s season lacks entertainment value and is now only able to bring tasteless, second tier regional acts to our community. These same regional acts bring their own support staff and artists, which take money from our local economy. And very rarely are any local vendors or suppliers used to support these regional acts.
The statement that WAC is supporting local our economy needs to be reviewed more. The alleged thought that the WAC improves our local Dickson street restaurants/bars is unfounded. The parking lots around the WAC are completely full during an event and empty after the 30 minutes it now takes to clear. I rarely see anyone that attended a concert at one of our local restaurants and/or bars.
Yes, I agree pat…. The rest of us shouldn’t let the clueless ingrates have the last unsubstantiated testimonial for the Walton Arts Center.
Coach, you may be the most most clueless of all.
Ask the 50 or 70 people who get paychecks when those big Broadway shows roll into town where they spend their money? How about the local piano tuner or the local musicians who get hired for the shows.? Where do the casts & crews stay when they come here? Where do they rent their cars? Where do they eat?
Regional acts? Have you looked at the line-up?
Bela Fleck, Kenny Rogers, Loretta Lynn, Blue Man Group, Peking Acrobats, Lewis Black, Martha Graham Dance, Munich Symphony, Poncho Sanchez, Brian Reagan to name just a few.
Don’t think you can catch them at the Dickson Street bars.
But you’re right, WAC probably doesn’t contribute a lot to the bars because it’s really not in the business of training college kids to binge drink.
Then those bars complain that their drunken customers can’t park their cars for free while they tank up and take to the roads in the wee hours.
I think there’s new WAC management since NSO. Have you heard of SoNA?
Maybe you didn’t make the new team Coach, is that why you’re such a hater?
Somebody has a wet dipey…
CAKE is coming back 4/19 so that makes me happy. I don’t care where I give my money to see another great CAKE show in Fayetteville. What’s with all the haters?