Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:23] Welcome to this very special edition of Cherokee Business Radio. It is time for our Woodstock Arts segment, one of my favorite times of the month. Really enjoy visiting with the folks over at Woodstock Arts. We have so much going on in this community and Woodstock Arts is such a big part of it. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast once again, no stranger to the Business RadioX microphone, Mr. Brian Gamel. Good morning.

Brian Gamel: [00:00:50] Sir. Good morning, sir. I’m glad to be here.

Stone Payton: [00:00:51] Well, it’s a delight to have you. Before we went on air, I was just thanking you for giving me the heads up on this. The Croce show. You said the stone. If you and Holly want to go this thing, you better get you some tickets, because this is going fast.

Brian Gamel: [00:01:05] Yeah, we. We are pretty dadgum close to selling out considering we went on sale less than less than 12 days ago. So, wow, we we officially went live with our new ticketing system. So it’s a lot simpler and easier to use for our patrons. And, and we also went on sale for everything next year. So through from August one through July 31st of next year, everything that we’re doing is on the website, on sale, all of those lovely things.

Stone Payton: [00:01:30] And there’s like a season option or two as well. You don’t have to just go in there and buy individual stuff and there’s probably some sort of incentive or some packages, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:01:39] For sure. So it’s super exciting because the old ticketing system, you used to have to go into subscriptions to get a subscription. This one as you’re going through, if you buy if you’re buying your table for lantern series and say, hey, if you want a discount, just get three more tables, there’s a pick for option. Just give, just get three more and we’ll give you this percentage off. Or if you buy all of them, you’ll get this percentage off. So it’s a really, really cool and advantageous system to allow customers to come in, buy a table and go, Oh, wait, you know what, I do want to go to a couple more of these and I can get them discounted instead of sitting here and, you know, every single time. Yeah. Trying to go and find a subscription. Right.

Stone Payton: [00:02:16] So and in these tables, this is not like you don’t have to mortgage your house to get these tables. They’re like a couple hundred bucks or something like 300 bucks.

Brian Gamel: [00:02:24] It’s it’s kind of insane, you know, it’s it’s sticker shock at first when you’re thinking about it, right? Because you’re buying the whole table, which is 6 to 8 seats.

Stone Payton: [00:02:30] Yeah.

Brian Gamel: [00:02:31] If you have four other friends or if you’re with a partner and you have four other friends or two other couples, that’s really all it takes. And you can fill that table up. Then you’re talking other than Croce, because that’s our headline and it’s going to cost a little bit more. You’re normally talking for a reserve table, 20 bucks a person somewhere in that ballpark, and the seats that you buy for just two of you end up being about 18 bucks a person. So, you know, you pay two extra dollars, you can get to sit significantly closer. And if you come and decorate your table, you get a chance to win a table to the next concert. So it’s it’s one of those things that the deal is just outrageous and people have a lot of fun with it. It makes it easier to just bring a meal, eat, have a good time. We have the we have waitstaff service for the tables as well. So you don’t have to get up and get your own drink and miss anything. We will come to you and ask if you need anything. Get you another get you another reformation, get you another land, hard cider, maybe some wine, you know.

Stone Payton: [00:03:22] Well, and a little plug for Christopher, because the first couple of times that Holly and I went out, she likes the Sauvignon Blanc and you didn’t have it. And Holly pestered Christopher to the point where you got plenty of Sauvignon Blanc now and every other thing, probably, yeah.

Brian Gamel: [00:03:37] When we when we first started the Lantern series, we just had the theater space, right? The Reeves house wasn’t built yet, so all the inventory was over there and it just turned into, well, you know, we’ll just use we’ll have a couple of more options over at Lantern Series. And now we basically bring up most of the Reeves house inventory of wine, too, which is a wine bar. So, you know, you have you have premium, you have house for most of everything. I think the Savion BLOCK is one of those more mid-tier where we don’t have a house wine. We have like the nice sauvignon blanc for you.

Stone Payton: [00:04:04] Sweet well know our M.O. and we’ll do it for for Croce but we’ll do it for the for the season. We’ll, we’ll smoke something on the grill during the day or the day before, or we’ll bring some shrimp out and we get kind of schmancy with it. My newest project, because I had it at a nice restaurant up in Chattanooga over the weekend. I’m an old country boy. I eat fried okra all the time. But this chef cut the the okra the long way. And then he he baked it or fried it in very shallow, a little bit olive oil. So we’re going to show it with like this stone special okra probably I got to experiment with. But yeah, we’ll we’ll steam some shrimp or smoke some, you know, smoke some ribs or some pork butt. And then you invite a couple other couples to come to the table and you say, tell someone you handle kind of order stuff, we’ll handle the main thing and then you do the dessert. It’s just, it’s, it’s it’s a party, man.

Brian Gamel: [00:04:58] It’s so much fun. And you got to try fry and pickled okra. I did that once. All right.

Stone Payton: [00:05:02] Now, did was it already pickled or did you pickle it?

Brian Gamel: [00:05:05] My mom pickled it. It was something from the family. So we we bought it and or we brought it over and went, why don’t we fry this like fried pickles and do it? Yeah. Yeah. It is amazing with a little bit of ranch and.

Stone Payton: [00:05:15] And so you bread it with like cornmeal or whatever the normal breading is and then you like deep fry it like the old school. Okay, I haven’t. I bet that does. It’s flavor.

Brian Gamel: [00:05:23] Yeah, it’s a nice little like a little bit like a fried pickle, you.

Stone Payton: [00:05:25] Know, man, I love to cook, I love to eat. I’ve been trying to eat a little bit less and a little less often, but I find that I enjoy food as much, if not more, than I did when I just gorged myself. So, yeah, I love it. And these are great opportunities, right? Take your cooler in. Don’t worry about the drinks. They’ll handle the drinks and just, you know, get you on a little roll in coolers. And we got us one of those. One of those little wagons. Yeah. Like the young couples have with the kids. Yep. Instead of having kids in ours, you know, we got food.

Brian Gamel: [00:05:54] Listen, my wife and I been talking about getting the same thing. We don’t have kids yet, at least. And, you know, those little wagons just moving them around wherever you need to go there, especially for events like the Lantern series or the Jazz Nights that we have at the Reeves house that are completely free to the public. Just go ahead and bring whatever you need on the wagon back there.

Stone Payton: [00:06:12] So I know I love Jazz Nights, too. I mean, this is. So you got jazz nights. You got the you’ve got the Lantern series, you’ve got the theater. And we’re kind of early in a new, relatively new installation over to Reeves House right now, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:06:27] Yeah. There’s the exhibit. It’s called Homegrown. So it’s all artists from Georgia and it’s a juried showcase, which means that they submitted and they had to be selected by a panel of judges and the judges that are going to determine a winner of it and they’re going to get a prize. So we’re planning on doing a similar thing next year, but expanding it to the entire southeast. So not just the state of Georgia, but this is all homegrown Peach State kind of tying in with our production of James and the Giant Peach, which opens when we’re recording this tomorrow, Wednesday morning, the 13th. So if you have any of the kids at home to that, yeah, you’re like, man, I need, I need to do something with these kids. It’s been a month of summer vacation. I need to do something with them in the mornings on a Wednesday well, 10 a.m. Wednesday mornings and also Saturday and Sunday afternoons. We have James and the Giant Peach for the next month for you and you.

Stone Payton: [00:07:14] That is such a cool story.

Brian Gamel: [00:07:16] Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. And the scenic team did a great job of building this giant peach on stage, and the cast is a lot of fun. We have a kid playing James and then we have adults playing some of the other roles. So it’s really that theater for young audiences, right? It’s not just kids in the show, but it’s it’s adults and kids, but it’s for kids, you know, and they do a lot of great work. The music’s a lot of fun. It’s by the same guys who wrote The Greatest Showman and Dear Evan Hansen. And a lot of those, the music is just so much fun. And the cast, you can tell, is having fun with it, too.

Stone Payton: [00:07:46] And there are seasonal options for the theater, their season options for the Lannan Series, or there’s all kinds of different packages, but just go to the website and run through it and find what’s right for you.

Brian Gamel: [00:07:56] Yeah, I know. It’ll be super easy. I will say for the theater where we’re introducing select your own seats. Not not for James, because it’s still part of this current season that doesn’t until July, but everything from August on, you actually can select your seats in the theater. So it’s not the general admission buy ticket, then hopefully show up 45 minutes early to get a front row seat. It’s sweet. You can go ahead and pick it out. And I’ll also say our subscribers, you get an insane deal if you if you subscribe to the season. Yeah it’s cheaper for the front row than anywhere else. If, if you subscribe. Wow. If you get the full season it’s, it’s something insane. I don’t remember the exact price. I want to say it’s close to like 12 bucks a ticket or something because it’s, you.

Stone Payton: [00:08:36] Know, and that’s great. That makes it accessible to everybody.

Brian Gamel: [00:08:40] Well, yeah. And that’s our goal, too, as an art center, obviously, with the way the world is working right now, you know, but trying to keep it as accessible as possible because we are a volunteer run organization, because there’s also being at the beginning of the new season, a ton of volunteer opportunities. If you’re if you’re crafty and thrifty and you really want to get make props, you know, we have those opportunities throughout the season. Same thing for costumes and for lighting and sound and all those fun things with the theater.

Stone Payton: [00:09:09] And like me, I have no discernible skills, but I have a truck and I have time.

Brian Gamel: [00:09:13] Yeah, that that is so important.

Stone Payton: [00:09:17] Those are stuff in a truck. Run it over to the to the green or whatever or you know, just I can do like the, you know, and it’s good to get out and do a little something physical or whatever. So, I mean, I can be ice guy, so, you know, go get us some ice.

Brian Gamel: [00:09:32] Yeah. And we have a couple volunteers who come every lantern series Saturday morning and roll some tables and put them out. You know, it’s, it’s there’s always something, you know, even if you’re not skilled and all you have is a truck, you can you can probably move at least a table in a couple of chairs. Right. But it’s you know, we we love our volunteers. It is so much fun to work with them. And, you know, we’re we have Camille, who’s doing a great job with it. And we’ve been counting ours because, you know, as an organization, we want to show the work you’ve put in and how that equates to financial or whatever that may be. So the system that we have tracks all of that, but also if you’re within a certain top ten or top 12 for that month or whatever it may be, you might be invited to extra special events.

Stone Payton: [00:10:16] Like.

Brian Gamel: [00:10:16] A preview night for a theater show or whatever that may be.

Stone Payton: [00:10:19] So you’ve got all these new ticketing. Season kind of packages and options. And part of it has been brought brought to bear because you have a new software system that’s more user friendly and all that stuff. Probably a lot easier to manage. Yes. And I think last time we talked, you were just about to install some kind of digital screen TV thingy. Tell us about that.

Brian Gamel: [00:10:42] So that the LED screen is completely installed. So have you been at Ben at Reformation, looked across the street, you can see a giant black wall because it’s not turned on that that we have beautiful picture. We’ve been working with the city on some events that they’ve been doing. So we’ve had, I believe, two movie nights up to this point. There’s another one coming up this month, Harry Potter. So Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on the third Thursday of the month. And we’re super excited to have that. But also we’re going to start having some more events out there like with that. So they’re not technically on the website or anything yet. So there’s still kind of early phases, but we’re talking about having movie nights or selves kind of throughout whenever we can. We’re going to have a couple over December for the holiday movies. Those will not be at night, just a heads up. Those might be more of during the day for the families, but so we’re planning on having a lot more free events out there that, you know, because Lantern Series is a paid ticketed event, because we are a nonprofit that are paying for these artists to come in. But we definitely want to be able to make a lot more accessible and free programing for our community. And what better place than the event?

Stone Payton: [00:11:50] Green So where are you? I forget because we’ve been doing this segment for a while and I can I can remember there’s there’s a period of the year where you go out and source these marvelous acts. Is that is that in the fall when when do you do that?

Brian Gamel: [00:12:05] That’s normally fall winter area. That way we can get everything planned and then we announce next year it’ll be in April. Hold on. Let me do some math. I believe it’s going to be April 15th, if I’m not mistaken, that we’re going to announce all of what’s happening the following August, through the following July. So not 20, 2023, August through July, 2024.

Stone Payton: [00:12:29] So do you go to places where there are your peers from other communities and the acts come to you or do you go to? The acts are a little bit of both.

Brian Gamel: [00:12:38] It’s mostly been conferences from that side of things if we’re going nowhere. I also so we just recently had some radio, phenomenal group. They were a lot of fun, but I found them through an artist we had already had, you know, we had had Sammy Ray in The Friends October of 2020 and follow them on social media, because it’s the best way to kind of figure out who knows who in that industry because everybody knows everybody. Yeah. And then she just said, Man, I love these guys. And I went, Great, we can love them too. So I found their agent, talked to him a little bit, but like Croce and when we had Crystal Bowersox from American Idol, when we had her here, it was it was we were at a conference, Croce, I believe, actually showcase. We got to see him perform. Crystal did not and some of the other ones haven’t. But they we get to see some artist showcase, we get to talk to their agents, but also we get to just talk to whatever agents are there and figure out. It’s just what we normally say is we love the unexpected and high energy. Yeah, because that’s just what we found. Our audience likes and kind of the goal and mission of the Lantern series is to bring different cultures and conversations together. So being able to say, Yeah, I want people to go, I’m not so sure about that chamber soul and then come and have such a phenomenal time. You know, you come to one or two Lantern Series concerts and you’re going to realize you can trust us because, you know, the talent will always be there. And for me, it’s also when if you go, you know what? They were very talented. It’s not my cup of tea, but they were very talented and I’m happy I came.

Stone Payton: [00:14:03] Right. And we still had the shrimp and the wine.

Brian Gamel: [00:14:06] Yeah, exactly. You’re going to have a great time no matter what. But and in all honesty, very rarely recently have we had a lot of the you know, it wasn’t my cup of tea, but, you know, they were very talented. And we’ve had a lot more, I think, open mindedness because we have a lot of returners of like, you know, I’m going to go into this thing and I don’t know what I’m going to get and I’m going to have a great time because I know I will.

Stone Payton: [00:14:26] Well, I got to say, personal experience that has personally happened to me, I’ve opened my mind because, you know, in the old days I was like, yeah, man, I listen to both kinds, country and western. And now, you know, I don’t you if you if you get the email from Libby, which I do want and you want to make sure you get on that email list and get the information from which because they’ll send you an email and check out their website. But I mean, you might see like we’re going to have bluegrass and reggae, you know, I mean, it’s just there is no combination that’s out of bounds.

Brian Gamel: [00:14:54] Oh, yeah, no, for sure. And kind of like you said, I was like, yeah, I’m open to music, I like musicals and I like country. And that’s what I like, that I’m very open to all kinds of music. But you know, by doing this job and by doing it, I used to not like bluegrass at all. I really love it now. Obviously love it now. Yeah. And I specifically love Irish bluegrass too, because there’s a couple of groups that do it and they do it really well, and it’s a genre that’s kind of weird, but it could work. It works really well. So we had a big jam earlier. If it was this calendar year. It’s been a roller coaster of a year. Sure. I think it was in March. We finally had them after the pandemic, forcing them to get pushed back like two or three years. But yeah, it was great having these guys from Tullamore Ireland come in and play some bluegrass.

Stone Payton: [00:15:37] Yeah, yeah. All right. So to plugging in as a volunteer, a website’s a good place to poke around. And there’s probably some some people to contact or reach out or or, you know, what, swing battery’s house and can get you one of those waffles and then ask about it. There’s lots of different ways to plug in, but the website is just a wealth of information. That’s a great place to start it.

Brian Gamel: [00:15:57] Yes, for sure. And the website can give you direct access to our volunteer portal where you can sign up and log in. And Camille does Camille does what we call Visionary 101, because that’s what we call our volunteers, visionaries. They share in the vision of the organization.

Stone Payton: [00:16:09] Absolutely.

Brian Gamel: [00:16:10] But where she’ll give you a tour and talk to you about what’s going on in the organization, show you the entire property, because we have that four and a half, four and a half acre lot that we’re constantly developing. We helped design the playground that’s on the lot, all of those lovely things. But she’ll talk you through all of that and the easiest way to do it is just go on the website and sign up for one of those visionary 100 ones and figure out how you want to get involved.

Stone Payton: [00:16:35] And you can just straight up write a check, too. If you if you have the means and you resonate with the mission and you believe in this, I mean, there may not be an opportunity to buy a brick and a sidewalk anymore. I don’t know about that. But but if you just you can just straight up do that.

Brian Gamel: [00:16:49] And we are a50103. So all that is, I believe, still tax deductible. You can write all of that off even from a business side, from sponsorship standpoint to what we’re right now in sign up in renewal season because the next season starts in August. So yeah, if you’re a business really looking to throw your name on something in downtown Woodstock, we I believe, you know, Chris Van Zandt, he’s signed on to be our presenting partner for the theater suite. So we still have a presenting partnership available for the Reeves house. But then we have other other things you can find out as well. The best person to contact for that one would be Beth. She’s our development manager. So and the easiest way to contact any of us is our name at Woodstock Arts dot org.

Stone Payton: [00:17:30] Well, that’s.

Brian Gamel: [00:17:30] Easy. That’s our agreement.

Stone Payton: [00:17:31] So I love what you guys did. Is it accurate to call it like a rebranding from upstate to to Woodstock Arts? I mean, I think part of the team you had helped you do that is like these are people that did this stuff for like Coca Cola, like big companies and stuff, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:17:47] Yeah. Yeah. We did work with Tom Cox and a little bit with the city as well because he did their rebranding for the Visit Woodstock’s section of the city branding. But yeah, they did great work and Libby’s been able to use that well and to also take the overarching brand and create things in our theater season and to create things with the Lantern series. So everything feels cohesive and smooth. And you know what? Instead of someone getting on the radio and butchering Elm Street Cultural Arts Village, if I had a nickel every time, so that was a mouthful, we’d have a brand new $10 Million Theater. But yeah, now we just have Woodstock Arts because we’re in Woodstock and we do the arts and keep it simple.

Stone Payton: [00:18:29] No, I love it. And of course, now we have a Woodstock arts hat.

Brian Gamel: [00:18:32] Yeah, we are selling merch. You can find out the Reaves House or Lantern Series or.

Stone Payton: [00:18:35] Not in the studio right now because it’s in my personal collection, because I love that hat. I wear it everywhere.

Brian Gamel: [00:18:40] You got one right there.

Stone Payton: [00:18:41] I do. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I give you two. Yeah. Oh yeah. I do have one right by the on air light sweet. You did give me too because. Yes.

Brian Gamel: [00:18:50] Yeah. No, it’s it’s a nice it’s a nice hat too.

Stone Payton: [00:18:53] It is.

Brian Gamel: [00:18:53] It’s a mickey about my hat. So that’s a nice hat.

Stone Payton: [00:18:56] Very cool. All right, before we wrap, let’s let’s leave our listeners this month with some with some key URLs and some key dates just to give them a little quick reminder.

Brian Gamel: [00:19:07] Yeah, for sure. Homegrown is still happening throughout the summer. That’s the exhibit over at the Reeves house. So go in and check that out at any point. All those pieces are for sale. They have actually been going pretty quick. So if you like something, you might want to go ahead and yeah, go ahead and sign up and pay for it. But you would get those at the end of that exhibit. Obviously, we have a concert this weekend. Shoshana Armstrong, she is phenomenal. She’s a Georgia native, does great work. But then we also are kicking off next season with Croce plays Croce, which you might have seen on PBS. And he’s done some great work with that as well. And in the theater we have James and the Giant Peach, and then we’ll kick off next season with a play called Cry It Out. That’s about women who have just given birth and just kind of all of them are in different phases of motherhood. And it’s a it’s a beautiful story. And then we have auditions coming up for Rocky Horror Picture Show or no Rocky Horror Show. It’s not the picture show. There’s there’s a difference. So the live version, stage version of the show.

Stone Payton: [00:20:01] Oh, very cool.

Brian Gamel: [00:20:02] Yeah. So that’s just a few of the things coming up.

Stone Payton: [00:20:04] So check out the site is.

Brian Gamel: [00:20:06] Woodstock Arts dot org. Yeah, not dot org, but yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:20:11] All right. Well, thanks again for coming in and keeping us up to date, man. And I’ll. I’ll see you on the green.

Brian Gamel: [00:20:16] Yeah, see you then.

Stone Payton: [00:20:17] Okey doke. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Brian Gammel with Woodstock. Arts and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you next time on Cherokee Business Radio.

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:23] Welcome to Cherokee Business Radio Stone Payton here with you this morning. And this is our special monthly Woodstock art segment for which we were all very well prepared and ready to go this morning. Poor Brian, of course. We have with us Brian Gamel with Woodstock Arts. And he was sitting here waiting at the studio for me. And I got here a little bit late. But we’re here now.

Brian Gamel: [00:00:45] We’re all here now.

Stone Payton: [00:00:46] And I was actually right there at the green a little while ago. I stopped by the little alma container there in the backyard of Reformation, had me a little green tea I was sipping. I noticed we’ve got the tin up so we’ve got stuff happening soon I suspect.

Brian Gamel: [00:01:02] Yeah, yeah, we have, we have a lot of stuff going on. It’s the summer months, so the green’s in full swing. We got stuff going on at the Reeves house and summer camps aren’t. So if you had kids that were interested in it. I am so sorry. I believe we still have some some availability for a visual art camp, but theater camp has been full, I think, since April.

Stone Payton: [00:01:19] So no, that is fantastic.

Brian Gamel: [00:01:22] It’s a great problem to have. Yeah. So for those of you who are like, dang, I missed it, go ahead and mark your calendars for March 1st of next year to sign your kids up. Because in early, yeah, that is the only way to get a spot. But we have three camps running out of time for camps running out of time right now, every week in there, week long. So that’s a lot of fun. But yeah, we have a concert coming up as part of the Lantern series this Saturday. It’s Paul O’Brien. He is a Haitian blues artist, so ended up being one of those with COVID having to find someone to replace last minute. But honestly, he should have been on our radar from the beginning. Fantastic musician and once again bringing that mission of talking about different cultures and creating conversation, but also making it accessible with something like blues, you know. So we’re super excited to have that on the green this Saturday. And then if you do have the kids that you just need something to do with them on a Wednesday morning or a Saturday Sunday afternoon. We have orphaned the Book of Heroes this month, which is a brand new play that’s about it’s kind of Greek mythology based. So I think the fun that you had watching Hercules with Disney, but a completely different and new story. And then next month we have James and the Giant Peach, the classic.

Stone Payton: [00:02:31] Oh, yeah. Everybody loves that, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:02:33] Yeah. It’s it’s a fantastic show. We have a great group working on it and we’re bringing back our sensory friendly programing. So if you or someone you know has some difficulty with flashing lights or loud sounds or anything like that sensory overload, we have that as well. You can find that on our website, but we’re bringing that back in full swing this year. So we’re super excited to be able to offer that accessible programing to our community because we know our community really gets behind that and we want to do that as well.

Stone Payton: [00:03:01] You guys are doing so much. I was just there yesterday evening. My wife, Holly, teaches a watercolor class and she is just so fulfilled doing that and meeting so many just wonderful people. And I mean, you guys are thriving. Just stuff going on there every day. Oh, I got there a little bit before class was over and there was a there was the the bar cart parked out there and there was a cornhole something, a tournament league, something going on.

Brian Gamel: [00:03:27] Yeah, cornhole was always happening up there we are. We are about to have the giant LED screen permanently installed out there. So if you saw Family Night last month with Star Wars out on the green, we had the movie that was that one was just a quick, quick fix because as everyone knows, shortages and delays on shipments and those very lovely things. We are we were dealing with the same thing, but we are installing that new screen for next Thursday and then it’ll just be out there. So we’ll be able to pump out a lot more movies talking about doing an indie film festival next year, nice sporting events. So if you’re hankering for a place to watch championship Saturday this December, you know, we might we might have a SEC championship watch party or something along those lines. So we’ll have to we’ll have to see where the year takes us. But we’re super excited to have that, to be able to open up that programing.

Stone Payton: [00:04:17] I love it. And at these events often there’s a beer or a wine card or something like that. And so the at the the Lannan Series, you can, you can bring your own food, but please get your beer and wine there. But there’s a marvelous selection and you can have a nice little picnic and all that stuff.

Brian Gamel: [00:04:37] Yeah, we actually really encourage people to bring their own food, make it into a whole thing. We have a table decorating contest, so when you purchase a table, right, you can win a table for the next one. It’s a, you know, north of $120 value most of the time that all you have to do is really decorate and go all out and you can win $120 worth of an experience. So.

Stone Payton: [00:04:56] And good luck competing with the black airplane folks, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:05:00] Yeah. Yeah. They they like to think that they’re the best decorated, but just. They’re just the loudest.

Stone Payton: [00:05:05] Yeah, they’re definitely the loudest. You’re not going to beat them on that front.

Brian Gamel: [00:05:07] I’m sporting their socks today just. Just for that reason. But yeah, I know they are, they are presenting partner and it is also sponsorship renewal season. So we’re talking to all of our sponsors and making sure they want to stick around for the next year. But also if you’re interested in. Sponsoring our season goes August through July so that that kicks off right about now. So go ahead and reach out through our website or any of our social media. Those are all at Woodstock gay I believe but the websites Woodstock arts dot org.

Stone Payton: [00:05:35] So and you’ve got sponsorship kind of built into a menu but you guys can get very creative too if if you’ve got an idea or some different ways you want to bundle some stuff. I mean, you’re talking about some open ears and some very creative people for sure.

Brian Gamel: [00:05:48] And, you know, the basic is almost every place has or almost every segment of the organization has kind of a bronze level and then kind of a gold level or I’m sorry, silver level, gold level. And then presenting. Obviously, they work their way up in price from that point. Sure. But you know, the different benefits you get, we we recently, I believe, you know, Chris Van Zandt, he recently signed on as our presenting partner for the theater for next season. And he started doing the math and went, wait, this is this is a great deal. I’m getting a lot of perks for this and just getting to throw my business name up for every theater show where, you know, you guys have thousands of people coming in throughout the year. So it’s it is a fantastic, fantastic deal. And we want to make sure that you get the best experience out of it as a business owner.

Stone Payton: [00:06:32] So so right now, I suspect you’re heads down managing all of this and not out on the road finding new acts and entertainment for us. So what is your cycle? You’re you’ll do that in the fall or something like that.

Brian Gamel: [00:06:44] Yeah, that’s closer to the fall and winter. We try to solidify everything by early of whatever the calendar year is so that we can announce it. I will go ahead and say we’re we’ve I think almost have the calendar for next season completely finalized with all programing, which is crazy that it took us this long to do it. But the organization’s grown so much. Right. So we I can tell you right now, go ahead and mark your calendars for about April 15th of 2023 through the end of May. We will always have at least three things going on. There’s going to be a gala on my first wedding anniversary. There’s right. There’s concerts, there’s theater shows. We have more theater shows than we’ve ever had coming up next year. And a lot of great gallery exhibits, including we have one it’s technically going to enter next season, but we have one opening up. I believe it’s the it’s the Thursday, so it’s the 23rd of this month. So June 23rd, it’s a it’s a competition show where people from all across the state have submitted work and they’re going to be ranked and judged and there’s prizes and that whole thing. So we’ll be bringing that back next season. Okay. But we’re going to expand it to the entire southeast. So wow. And we’ll be bringing back favorites like small town small works where artists that live a certain distance from Woodstock doing pieces that are a certain size that make it affordable for you to find things over the holiday. So we’re super excited to bring that back as well.

Stone Payton: [00:08:09] So this installation coming up, is it a certain type of medium or is it different media?

Brian Gamel: [00:08:14] It’s different media entirely. I, I believe we mostly have to DH work. There could be a couple of sculptures and things in there, right. But yeah, so it is mostly 2D work from my understanding. Granted, Nicole has been curating all that artwork, so I might get back to the office and say, Hey, what were you talking about there? It’s all 3D, Brian. But she has some cool exhibits coming up next year, including she’s been working with the city on a public art project that should happen in the next couple of months or so. It might be even sooner just trying to get all the pieces out onto our property as well as a couple of other places. And I think we’re trying to get a mural up there. If you’re familiar with the green, the shipping container that’s sitting on top of the restroom. Shipping containers. Yeah, yeah. There’s going to be a mural there. That’s always been the plan. Just trying to find the right artist to to share the vision.

Stone Payton: [00:09:01] But yeah, one of the things I remember about those shipping containers is Holly and I were just moving to town. There was like that reveal night and everybody was very excited about the programing, but they were particularly excited about the restroom containers that got the biggest.

Brian Gamel: [00:09:14] Applause, you know, over over covet having to transition so much outside. And then people got really used to porta potties and no one likes getting used to porta potties. So especially, you know, with the farmer’s market and all of those things going on, they would have just rows of them and it’s really hard to sell your veggies next to porta potties. So right. Having those permanent restrooms that don’t smell.

Stone Payton: [00:09:36] The same way those.

Brian Gamel: [00:09:37] Other ones did, I think I think we were all really excited for that. It’s kind of funny. All of the capital projects, you know, getting the kitchen or done our pottery studio that still has classes going on, getting the Reaves house, the playground, the the restrooms, all of that happen as soon as we couldn’t be doing any programing. But now everything’s happening all at once again. So it’s it’s a nice it was almost like we had a little bit of a programing break to build everything. And then once everyone’s come back, hey, let’s just do all of it at once.

Stone Payton: [00:10:08] So the universe was conspiring to help you? Yeah.

Brian Gamel: [00:10:12] Something like.

Stone Payton: [00:10:13] That. One of the most heartwarming things for me as a local resident and just walking around is to walk by the playground and. Hear the kids laughing and see the couples now. All the couples to me, your kids now, they all look so young. But to see the young families and playing and they’ll, you know, they’ll be sitting there with a with a beer or a wine or a tea or something watching the kids play. I love that. And one of the things that Holly really enjoyed during this past season at the Reeves house was art created by younger people. She really enjoyed that.

Brian Gamel: [00:10:49] Yeah, we had a youth exhibit this past, I believe it was around January. Yeah. And the kids did great work. There was this huge there were some pieces where I was like, I couldn’t I could never imagine. And I looked down and it was a first grader who did it.

Stone Payton: [00:11:02] So I don’t you know.

Brian Gamel: [00:11:05] It was a little bit of, oh, man, I need to reevaluate my visual art skills, I guess, but also like the talent that we’re in these kids, it was it was just phenomenal. Yeah, we we yeah. It was a great fun year. The house is officially over a year old, so congrats to.

Stone Payton: [00:11:19] Okay.

Brian Gamel: [00:11:19] Yeah, that happened I believe last month. We we hit our one year mark. So a lot a lot has happened in just a year.

Stone Payton: [00:11:27] So we should definitely have a standing anniversary type event for that and we should have a standing Gammel anniversary event, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:11:36] Oh yeah, for sure. It’s funny, I kept joking with my wife as we were looking and slowly things are filling up the calendar. I was like, Hey, are you going to be okay if the gal is on her first year or wedding anniversary and she’s like, Yeah, we can just pretend it’s a big party for us, right? You know, the Big Ten music, you know, the normal things you have for your first anniversary, 600 of your closest friends, something like that.

Stone Payton: [00:11:59] But and so in my mind, from my vantage point, you guys, you and your wife, you have like this utopian lifestyle because she’s at the pie bar, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:12:08] Yeah, she’s the GM of Pie Bar. So she’s working at both the Marietta and Woodstock locations.

Stone Payton: [00:12:13] And then you are neck deep into Woodstock art scene. I mean, it just I’m sure there’s work involved, but it just looks like such a fun, fulfilling lifestyle.

Brian Gamel: [00:12:22] Yeah, we both really enjoy what we do and this community and it’s a lot of fun to see people come from all over the place and to Woodstock. And it’s like you said, there’s a lot of young families and it’s we’re we’re in a really weird place for an arts organization, too, because, you know, we’ll we’ll go to these meetings with the presenters I think I’ve talked to you about in the past. But for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s a group of the venues that present music acts throughout the state. So we all go and meet and a lot of times they’ll talk about, Man, we just want a younger audience, we want a younger audience, we want a younger we can have a young audience and that’s really cool. You know, our that means that our audience is going to grow with us in a sense, right? So but we are we are in a weird place for an arts center where most the average age of a of a patron for most places is probably in the sixties. The seventies, yeah. Are just probably squarely in the forties, you know. So we have a nice young group, but we also have classic Woodstock supporting us as well. So it’s, it’s a nice place to be at.

Stone Payton: [00:13:18] So the theater schedule, like what’s the name of it again?

Brian Gamel: [00:13:21] Orfeo Orfeo in the Book of Heroes. So Orpheus.

Stone Payton: [00:13:25] And there’s several. There’s several of them happening. You can catch them. There’s several appearances.

Brian Gamel: [00:13:31] Yeah. So for our summer shows, because they’re more geared towards kids right now, which look at next season because there’s some adult programing over the summer next season. But for this season, we we will be having both Aubrey and James on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. and then Wednesday mornings at 10:00. Our summer camps are there, so they get to see the show. But also we know parents still work over the summer. Sometimes grandparents are taking care of the kids. And what better way to give them something to do than to come to a show at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday and get them all geared up and get to see some fun and exciting theater live.

Stone Payton: [00:14:07] And in the theaters right there behind the chambers building or part of the Chambers Building where we go and listen to the local leaders tell us what’s going on.

Brian Gamel: [00:14:16] Yeah, if you if you’re familiar with where route stock is that right there, the corner of town Lake Parkway in Maine.

Stone Payton: [00:14:22] It’s my second lily pad, right walking to town. My first one is IPS. Right? Believe me, I know where it’s going.

Brian Gamel: [00:14:28] Yeah. So you just, you know, if you if you drive into town, you park in that giant parking lot and go, man, that building looks like a church. It used to be, but now it’s a theater and still is on Sundays. But we we have our theater programing in there as well, as well as most of our offices.

Stone Payton: [00:14:42] Right. Right. All right. So what do you think people should be thinking about and doing to get ready for the balance of the season? They should they should go to the website. Yeah, that’s the easiest place to kind of get your ducks in a row, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:14:58] For sure. And right now, we have a lot of fun coming up next year, including a lot a lot of our patrons have been really excited for. Croce plays Croce as part of the Lanford series. So if you’re familiar with Time and a Bottle and Jim Croce and his son A.J., actually it’s this beautiful. I actually was in tears when I saw it live, this beautiful love letter to his father and the relationship that they were able to have for the few years that he was alive while. Right. A.j. was growing up. But it’s it’s talking about the stories. And you get to see now that we have that big LED screen, you can see some film footage of him like old family photos and videos of it’s it’s it’s heartwarming. And we have a lot of people really excited for it. Well, that is part of next season, which doesn’t go on sale to the general public until July 30 or July 1st, unless you get a subscription, which you can get a subscription right now, if you head over to our website, just look for that information. But we will also be getting a new ticketing system July 1st. Yes. So it’ll be more integrated to our website than ever before. If you’re familiar with the theater, we’re actually going to do some reserve seating in there as well so that you don’t have to show up for your spotlight. Kids show at 4 p.m. for 730, go to to make sure you have the perfect seat. You can just go ahead and purchase those seats in advance. And if you get a theater subscription, you get the premiere seating for cheaper than the back of the house seating.

Stone Payton: [00:16:20] So there’s a pro tip.

Brian Gamel: [00:16:22] Yeah. Honestly, subscriptions for no other reason than just you get your spot and it’s the cheapest option available. It’s fantastic. And you already have something planned and can invite friends and it’s, it’s a whole fun time. But yeah, that new ticketing system we’re very much looking forward to, we’ll be able to scan in tickets, you know, do all those fantastic things that you will come to expect from theaters these days. But we just haven’t been able to up to this point. But now we’re super excited to work with them and. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:16:50] All right. So before we wrap, let’s talk a little bit about community involvement. Surely there’s plenty of opportunity to volunteer. We touched on business sponsorship a little while ago, but there’s there’s ample opportunity. If you want to get involved and support this effort, there’s always plenty to be done.

Brian Gamel: [00:17:05] Yes. Yeah, for sure. We we are a volunteer run organization. We always have been. We always will be. It’s important for us to be involved with the community as a nonprofit. There’s no there’s no reason to not be right. This is a fantastic community that wants to be involved in the arts. So why why not embrace that?

Stone Payton: [00:17:21] Sure.

Brian Gamel: [00:17:22] So whether you’re looking to be involved as someone who hands out programs, if you want to show up to one of these city functions at a table and just talk about what we do, because you’re just so energized about it. Right? If you want to help hang a gallery exhibit, if you want to see a concert for free, but toss out some beers as well, like you know those. And if you want to design some lights, some costumes, some scenic work, any of that, you can once again, you can do that through our website. You can get that information. But Camille are volunteer and event manager is is now on full time so. Oh really. Yeah we are super excited to be able to bring her on full time because that means more attention given to our volunteers and more opportunities. So we are trying to grow that program and as well as just grow some appreciation to have some of those events. We did a visionary only paint and sip, which visionaries are what we call our volunteers side now. But we had a visionary only paint and sip, so they had the opportunity to have a discounted paint and sip class together and just hang out and get to know each other. So we’re really building a little micro community here in the. Greater Woodstock community.

Stone Payton: [00:18:28] That was another thing I thoroughly have enjoyed is the art on the spot where you can visit with the artists while they’re doing their thing, and often they’ll have a couple of little examples. I mean, you guys, you have such a marvelous variety. You know, it’s not all it’s not all one thing. You guys you guys rock.

Brian Gamel: [00:18:45] Yeah, we we stay busy over there. I’ll I’ll tell you I’ll tell you what we like. I said, we’ve been playing with the calendar. We have these giant blown up month by month calendars and everyone wrote in a different color to make sure you know what was what. And I don’t know if we have less than 700 events coming up next year. So wow, it if you’re looking for something to do, we’ll always have it.

Stone Payton: [00:19:05] All right. So let’s leave everybody with the right coordinates. The main thing is the website right now, that’s the best thing.

Brian Gamel: [00:19:10] 1,000%, 1,000%. The website is the best place to get your information. Libby, our marketing manager, has also done a great job across Facebook and Instagram as well.

Stone Payton: [00:19:18] So email.

Brian Gamel: [00:19:19] And email. Oh, yeah. She’s she’s she’s a rock star on email. But if you’re looking for that thing when you’re just scrolling around, yeah, Facebook and Instagram are a great place to visit too.

Stone Payton: [00:19:28] Okay, so the website is.

Brian Gamel: [00:19:30] Woodstock Arts dot.

Stone Payton: [00:19:31] Org. Well, that’s easy enough.

Brian Gamel: [00:19:32] Yep. Keep it simple and clean.

Stone Payton: [00:19:33] Yeah. Tap into the Facebook and Instagram and and enjoy that and use it to inform inform your plans, but also to share with your with the people that you know.

Brian Gamel: [00:19:43] Yeah, of course. We obviously always want to grow this community and we we we love to bring new people in and share some new ideas and, you know, do all those lovely things.

Stone Payton: [00:19:54] Yeah, well, keep up the good work, man. And thanks for coming by and visiting, even if your producer shows up a little later.

Brian Gamel: [00:19:59] Hey, man, thanks for getting out of bed for me.

Stone Payton: [00:20:02] Happy to do it. All right. This is Stone Payton for Brian Gamble in Woodstock Arts and everyone here at the Business RadioX family. We’ll see you next time on Cherokee Business Radio.

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:23] Welcome to this very special edition of Cherokee Business Radio. It is time for our Woodstock Arts segment. And of course, we have with us Mr. Brian Gammel. Good morning, sir.

Brian Gamel: [00:00:36] Good morning, sir. How’s it going?

Stone Payton: [00:00:37] It’s going great. Good to have you back. And I got to tell you, you guys, many of you here locally anyway, know that I like hats. And in our studio we must have a dozen hats. And I’m going to have to get one of our other sponsors, Steele Interiors, in here to build me some more shelves so I can have more hats. But I inherited I was gifted a Woodstock arts hat today, so see me walking around town. I will have that hat on almost assuredly. And this is something that people can purchase at the Reeves house or in some of these events, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:01:10] Yes. Yeah. They’ll be able to purchase them at least at the Lantern series and the Reeves house. I think we’re still trying to figure it out for the theater, figure out where a merch station is going to go. But I’m definitely at the Lantern series and at the Reeves house.

Stone Payton: [00:01:19] Well, it’s a good looking hat. And when we publish this segment, we’ll make sure that we get get a good picture of it in there as well. Would it be inappropriate if if we were to share the latest news on the personal front? Man, what’s been happening in your life over the last few weeks?

Brian Gamel: [00:01:35] Well, I just came back from my honeymoon a little hot minute ago because I got married on the 22nd of April. So I accidentally made it Earth Day and we had a fantastic Earth Day. So, yeah, my wife and I, she is the general manager over at Pie Bar, both Marriott and Woodstock. So we just had a phenomenal wedding and just came back from Colorado and had a great trip.

Stone Payton: [00:01:57] That is fantastic. So I had not been to the Marietta paper, but we went and visited with my my cousin Zack, who’s getting ready to leave town and he’s a bartender a couple of doors down at, I don’t know, something with birds.

Brian Gamel: [00:02:13] Two birds. Two birds. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:02:14] Okay. And so so we strolled over into the pie bar there, and of course, they do every bit as great a job there as they do out here in in Woodstock. But, you know, our first love is Woodstock. We like Marietta. We love Marietta. But our first love is Woodstock course. All right. Get us caught up, man. What’s happening over there at Woodstock Arts this month and next?

Brian Gamel: [00:02:34] You know, things have not slowed down just because I was away. We this upcoming Sunday, we have art on the green, which is our twice a year arts market. We had a couple of discussions back and forth on the office where their biannual met once every other year or twice a year. So I’m just going to say twice a year arts market. But it’s on the green space, obviously completely free to attend. You’ll be able to see Vivien and Pie Bar there. They’re actually going to have some free samples for people to try and but we’ll have some live music. Obviously a bunch of great local artists. I believe we have almost 60/10 of hours that you can just go check out their work and hopefully support too.

Stone Payton: [00:03:16] So right there on the green.

Brian Gamel: [00:03:17] Right there on the green, directly across the street from Reformation.

Stone Payton: [00:03:20] And now we have even more and better golf cart parking. Yes, right. Oh, yeah. To the side. There’s some Astroturf out that way. Oh, I may have asked you this last time. Are there maybe we talked about this or there’s some plans maybe to Astroturf the the green or that’s just like a.

Brian Gamel: [00:03:35] There are plans. The funding is where that’s going to take at least a hot minute.

Stone Payton: [00:03:40] It’s always the money, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:03:42] Yeah. Especially with doing that large of a space in Astroturf. It’s, it’s not.

Stone Payton: [00:03:45] As cheap as you might want to bet. It’s not. So we have a little side yard here and we have a little patio home right there on the edge of town. We’re just past IPS in that neighborhood. And so we don’t have a lot. And so as I was watching them do that Astroturf close to the street, I was wondering if I could con them out of a strip, but I didn’t give it. But it looks beautiful.

Brian Gamel: [00:04:08] It’s great. They’ve done a great job, especially with the while I was gone on the honeymoon. It was funny that it feels like all the trees just have all the leaves on them again, so it’s nice and shady over there. It’s looking great over on that side of town.

Stone Payton: [00:04:19] So in these tents, what kind of art and vendors might we see?

Brian Gamel: [00:04:23] It varies tremendously. So you’ll see Madison and Dusty. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, but they have stuff and made mercantile.

Stone Payton: [00:04:30] Okay. Well, you know who bars? Yeah. You see the Dirty Unicorn. Is that his moniker. So bars that made I’ve gotten to know him a little bit he made a custom leather tag for me for a Christmas thing that I did, but no, I don’t. What was their.

Brian Gamel: [00:04:46] Name? Madison and Dusty. So they Madison’s actually works with the city on Main Mercantile, so she does a lot of great work there and I know they’ll be there. Katie O’Connor has some of her prints that’ll be there. She has this like at home print. It’s just really cool. I actually got her to do a do something for Vivienne for Christmas. So a lot of really great artists with a large variety of different styles of artwork too. So we’re super excited to have that. Obviously some potters and pottery.

Stone Payton: [00:05:16] Yeah.

Brian Gamel: [00:05:18] Just the whole gamut really.

Stone Payton: [00:05:19] And we can nibble on some pie.

Brian Gamel: [00:05:21] Yeah, you can nibble on some pie too.

Stone Payton: [00:05:23] Fantastic. I love the green light. Even today, it’s such a beautiful day to day and I will find some time just to walk around. And I just love making that little walk right by the green, because sometimes I can hear that there’s a there’s a group of people who enjoy playing bluegrass and they’ll be playing in the backyard of reformation. But you can hear them all the way at the at the, you know, on the other side of the green where you’re sitting on the stage. Yeah. And grab you. Usually I’ll grab a beer or a tea or coffee there at Reeves house and then I’ll sit down on that stage. It’s just, and watch the kids play it. And it’s just, I mean, it’s it’s utopia. I love this place.

Brian Gamel: [00:06:02] Yeah. And the weather’s been beautiful recently, especially in the shade where it’s just like, let me. Let me feel that breeze and just listen to that bluegrass in the background. And, yeah, everything’s great. And honestly, we’re, we’re excited. So obviously, we recently had our season revival, which I don’t know if I think you might have actually been on your.

Stone Payton: [00:06:19] I think we were on our boat, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:06:20] Yeah. So we announced everything we’re doing. Our seasons run with the school calendar August through July. Okay. So we announced all the theater shows, at least almost all the theater shows, almost all the concerts and all the exhibits at the Reeves house. But there’s a couple of things we didn’t announce that are happening over at the green where, you know, we’re getting a brand new LED screen over there. So, yeah, yes. It’s it’s going to be bigger and better than the one we had before. Not much bigger, but definitely a lot better. Yeah. So we’re, we’re doing things like a film festival, movie nights, all those sorts of fun things that will, will be coming up. So make sure to mark your calendars once we get those officially announced. But so many great opportunities. We’re talking about video game tournaments out there just so much, so much to do so that that place is going to be definitely busy over the next year or so.

Stone Payton: [00:07:11] I love that idea. I’ve never actually attended a video game tournament, but I’ve seen like snippets of it on online and it looks like a really cool thing.

Brian Gamel: [00:07:21] Well, you know, it’s almost like I’ve seen people play sports games on the JumboTrons at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Right? Like, that’s so cool. The concept of that. So it’d be kind of similar, obviously nowhere near that big. But you could you could see them playing from reformation, right? They’re going to all feel that.

Stone Payton: [00:07:38] Yeah, right. Because it’s like huge. Yeah.

Brian Gamel: [00:07:40] Yeah. So I can only imagine playing super smash pros out there with a bunch of people and grabbing you some reformation beer and just having a great time.

Stone Payton: [00:07:49] Yeah. All right. And then we’re into our lantern series now. Yes.

Brian Gamel: [00:07:54] Yeah, we we are. We’ve still been in it a little bit. We had a big jam finally come after I booked him about four years ago and everyone knew they were coming about two years ago. Great, phenomenal concert we had. Wilder But just the duo come recently and that was fantastic. And then I believe I’m going to pull up that date real quick. It’s not this weekend, but the following or no? It’s the 28th, 28th of May. We have the Aditya Prakash Ensemble, which I’m super excited for. Yeah, it’s Carnatic Jazz, which I.

Stone Payton: [00:08:25] Don’t even have a clue what that.

Brian Gamel: [00:08:26] Means. Carnatic? Yeah, Carnatic music is a style of singing and India and the main guy idea. He focuses on trying to bridge that gap. So it’s really what the Lantern series is about of finding different styles of music and making them a lot of fun, making them approachable for an audience that might just hear Carnatic music go, That’s a word I don’t know. I’m not going to listen to it, but like give it that jazz element. And there’s these phenomenal moments where the saxophonist and Aditya, they they’re playing at the same time, the same tempo, like the same notes, and at this very high paced vol like speed. And it’s just so cool to listen to as a saxophonist, right? So. Right. It’s just the talent in this group is so amazing. And also just learning about a new culture. That’s what we’re all about.

Stone Payton: [00:09:20] Sure. Now, does that bump up against Memorial Day? That’s Memorial Day weekend.

Brian Gamel: [00:09:24] Maybe so, yeah. We want to give everyone something to do just for that time off. Did you that concert on Saturday night and enjoy your other two days?

Stone Payton: [00:09:31] Yeah. I can’t imagine it at this point that anyone in the greater Woodstock area wouldn’t wouldn’t know some of this stuff, but I don’t think it’ll hurt. To recap it, there’s there’s always beer and wine there. Yes. That is not like marked up crazy, you know, like when you go to a theater, $10 for a bucket of popcorn. And but you can you can bring some stuff, too, to nibble on like a.

Brian Gamel: [00:09:55] Picnic, of course. So because the beer and wine sold there, we legally can’t have you bring in your own. Sure, but we have it.

Stone Payton: [00:10:01] Therefore we want to support it, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:10:02] Of course. But we do highly recommend bringing in your food. I definitely recommend getting a table if you have, you know, you your significant other and maybe for other people that you can get together, just get a six top table. Because once you decorate that table, if you win the table decorating contest, you get another free table. So you get to just come and enjoy. Multiple concerts at that point. But also you can bring in some food. Just have a great night, you know, get there a little early, set up your picnic, get this table decorated, and then just enjoy a beautiful concert with sun setting right behind the stage. There’s nothing that can beat that view when the sun is setting and you’re listening to some fantastic music, you have your tableside wait staff coming up to you because you’ve got your table. You win your table decorating contest and you know you’re coming to the next one like it’s you know, it’s just a great evening.

Stone Payton: [00:10:49] It is it’s it was initially so much of the initial draw for Holly and I to move here. And it’s it’s just one of those things we brag about and and we try to incorporate whenever family comes to town. And we love to show off so many aspects of Woodstock, but Woodstock Gardens is typically the heart of that show and tell.

Brian Gamel: [00:11:13] Yeah, and we have a lot of great stuff coming up next season too, including a. A special called Croce plays Croce, where if you’re familiar with Jim Croce, his son A.J. Croce plays a lot of the songs from his father and shows some videos of himself growing up and playing with his dad. Obviously, his dad unfortunately died while he was super young. But there’s these family videos and he’ll play time in a bottle and talk about how much that song means to him now and how it connects him to his father. I got to see a snippet of it. That’s how we book these bands. We go to conferences and we see snippets of these maybe 15 minutes worth of a concert. And, you know, I had a tear brought to my eye just that, you know, relationship with a son and his father. And even though they didn’t get a long time of it together, he just it means everything to him. Right. So.

Stone Payton: [00:11:59] So as far as you, are you in the season of going out and doing that or is this the season of staying home and making sure it all gets executed?

Brian Gamel: [00:12:07] This is the season of staying home, making sure it all gets executed. That season’s closer in the fall or winter that way. Know normally once again, behind the scenes, a little bit next season, we’re going to announce our season reveal probably in March or April. I don’t remember the exact date off the top of my head. It’s somewhere in a piece of paper back in my office. But we within theory, we should have everything booked by February. So I know what we’re doing.

Stone Payton: [00:12:32] Right.

Brian Gamel: [00:12:32] Months ahead of anybody else knowing what we’re doing that way, you know, when we announce we can have everything planned out, everything’s schedule, all these beautiful designs made by Libby, our marketing manager, all these fantastic things. And the same thing with the theater. We want to have everything figured out in December and January so that we have time to get directors in place. And, you know.

Stone Payton: [00:12:50] Yeah.

Brian Gamel: [00:12:51] Other people just involve so.

Stone Payton: [00:12:52] So I have a meeting, a one on one, we call it because I’m part of the Woodstock Business Club with a lady at Reeds House today. So we’ll, we’ll, we’ll go sit like in that little area right in front that’s shaded and all that. So I’ll enjoy that as early as this afternoon. But there’s a relatively new exhibitor. It’s not the technical thing with the with the Heather Feathers we call, we’ve turned it over. Right. We’ve got a new exhibit. Yeah, let’s talk about that.

Brian Gamel: [00:13:21] Yeah, it’s the Stacy Rose exhibit. It’s a solo show and it’s just a lot of her work in this more abstract style. So you go from this very technology driven exhibit to this more abstract definitely paint on canvas style exhibit. So kind of taking it back to the roots of traditional art in that sense.

Stone Payton: [00:13:44] So I, I didn’t walk through there and invest a great deal of time. I probably will before or after my meeting today, but I did kind of just zip through there the other day. And I mean all of the exhibits. One of the things that I like about it is often it’s it’s a a style of art that I am not accustomed to seeing. You know, I’ve been blessed in had an opportunity to travel and see, you know, like the old museums. And I got to see some I learned you don’t say Van Gogh, it’s Van Gogh. But I saw like a Van Gogh museum on this last boat ride that we did. But I love the I love the diversity, I guess is, is the right word, the types of exhibits and the type of art that you get exposed to. And I just I love that.

Brian Gamel: [00:14:36] Yeah, I’ve told you before and once again, people might have heard this, but it’s not bad to to re say it. But part of the reason we have a coffee shop and the wine bar in the Reaves house is because, you know, a lot of people might not walk into an art gallery at first or an art museum. They’ll walk in and get their cup of coffee. We make that a habit for them and they go, Wait, that piece is really cool. Maybe I like art. We did our job right, you know? Right. And Nicole has curated a bunch of great stuff going into next season as well. She’s exhibit called Papercut. So if you were ever at the first exhibit and you saw that little paper living room that we did. Yeah, a lot more of stuff like that. There’s another exhibit that I’m really excited for called Off the Wall, because it’s literally pieces that come off and out of the wall towards you as a patron. So it’s super fun, the things that she’s looking at doing and they’re unique, like you said. And I love it when we can get different artists in their interpretations of these types of things, like how women’s work, you know, it was all traditionally women done forms of art, but they were all different styles of that art and different interpretations of that. So Nicole’s really great at curating a phenomenal exhibit.

Stone Payton: [00:15:43] And then you guys do so many other things out of that facility to support and celebrate other forms of art. Other great things come on going on around the community. I think I’ve been to a million cups presentation in that facility. My wife hung a quilt that my sister in law did at this quilt thing you had in the back. There was a there was a jazz night and Holly and I weren’t able to make, but it was definitely on our on our calendar. There’s a lot of cool stuff like that that’s happening virtually weekly, certainly more than. Mostly right.

Brian Gamel: [00:16:20] Yeah. So we have for sure three events that happen every month. One is locals night where in the studio space where you can take classes at. Right. We, we highlight a local artist and hang their artwork and they’re almost like a little mini exhibit and they’re in there for the month. We have art on the spot, which is local artists. Once again, they are making artwork right there in the time frame of the event and you can pay $5 for a raffle ticket and possibly win one of the artworks that’s made right there on the spot. Right? Almost like how we came up with a clever right. And then we do have a monthly jazz night. So that’s always the last Friday of the month.

Stone Payton: [00:16:53] And Jazz tonight is monthly.

Brian Gamel: [00:16:54] It’s completely free to the public to just come in, come out in the back, go ahead and grab yourself a bottle of wine and sit there for a while and listen to some great music by some local musicians.

Stone Payton: [00:17:04] Yeah. And sometimes at some of these other events there’s been I know one local musician, Greg Chadwick’s, who’s a good buddy of mine or has become a good buddy of mine, probably from that. Another great thing about this community, I didn’t realize how much I personally enjoyed live music until I moved here and can walk around and hear it.

Brian Gamel: [00:17:29] So yeah, live, live music is such a great thing and honestly, a great way to support local artists too. I mean, music we found even through the Lantern series is one of the lowest thresholds of artwork. Right. You know, people have these ideas of theater or they have these ideas of visual arts because they think of all the movies and media they’ve seen of, oh, well, the theater.

Stone Payton: [00:17:52] And the.

Brian Gamel: [00:17:53] Art gallery are hoity toity. Like, no, it’s we want to make everything accessible. You know, we might not be we want to be something for everyone as long as you want to be, you know, you want us to be that for you. So that’s like you were saying, every exhibit is different. It’s fun, it’s unique. Every theater show, you know, we just closed sister act. It was a lot of fun. And we on Saturday night, we had a very excited, loud I wouldn’t necessarily say rowdy because it wasn’t like they were ill behaved, but, you know, a rowdy almost crowd. And we had an actor ask us, you know, like, how do we as an organization feel about that? And honestly, we love it. I love the fact that people can come here, you know, whoop and holler, have a great time, feel excited and not feel that pressure of when you go to a hoity toity theater and everyone stares at you because you get super excited or you think a joke is so funny that you let out this guttural, you know, like you didn’t even realize you were going to laugh that hard or but it’s just so much fun. And to see people have such great fun and support artists and support each other, it’s just a cool thing.

Stone Payton: [00:18:58] So are we in that season of a regular rhythm of some theater productions as well.

Brian Gamel: [00:19:03] As we are? So the theater only at most has a couple of months off throughout a year. So right now we actually have the most time off that we normally do because it’s leading into the summer and we have two shows to close out this season. Both are family shows. One’s called Orphan The Book of Heroes, which is based off of Greek mythology. Orpheus Hades is in it. It’s a lot of fun. It’s basically a way for kids to understand that. And it’s goofy, it’s lighthearted, the music’s great. And then we close out our season in July with James and the Giant Peach, so that classic Ronald doll. And it’s just a very, once again, a very fun show and a great group of people that are on it. And then we start the next season in August.

Stone Payton: [00:19:44] Fantastic. All right. So let’s do this, Business RadioX. Let’s talk about local businesses who would like to to to support Woodstock arts, but also get the benefit of being seen as supporting and celebrating the, you know, the local business community and community at large. You have some opportunities to to do some sponsorship. And a lot of these we do.

Brian Gamel: [00:20:12] And something else that we don’t normally talk about that I’ll just plug in first real quick is we’ve had things businesses like Salesforce and other larger corporations too that haven’t sponsored, but their employees have gotten together to volunteer. And that’s a great way to get involved because we are a volunteer run organization. So they’ve come in and they’ve helped build out the set a little bit, right? Or they’ve helped paint something or you know, you don’t need to have all of this knowledge in the world. You could have never picked up a paintbrush before. We will accept you on the paint team because, you know, Katie Caldwell has actually been helping out a lot with that and she can help anyone pick up a roller and paint the stage black. It’s, you know, and then you can grow from there. But from a business standpoint, outside of the volunteerism aspect, we do have sponsorships. We’re about to start the renewal process. So if you’re currently a sponsor, we’ll be seeing you soon. But if you’re looking to sponsor something, we do the full season and there’s different levels. Obviously you can be the presenting sponsor. Those are so Black Airplane is our presenting sponsor for Lantern series. And then. We still have openings for both the Reeves house as well as the theater. And then you can be different levels of sponsors below that, but you get different perks.

Brian Gamel: [00:21:26] So if you’re a theater sponsor, if you’re a gold or presenting, you get one day where you can bring a certain number of people, whether they’re clients, whether they’re your employees, to a reception before the show. Talk to the director, talk to the artistic director, whoever kind of get that backstage tour a little bit to. Yeah, and then go see the show together and just have this great time where you can either get some prospective clients in there or you can just really appreciate your employees lantern series. Kind of the same way you have tables that you can have at each concert, and then with the Reeves house, you can do special appreciation events that will help you do so. If you want to have your own personal jazz night for your for your clients, or we can help you out with that. So there’s a bunch of different things and if you’re interested at all, we have a development manager now who is in charge of all of that, really say her name is Beth, so her email would be Beth at Woodstock Arts dot org. Super easy, but she does great work with all of those things and honestly wants to help you in whatever way you want to showcase your business.

Stone Payton: [00:22:31] So fantastic. And one thing I do not want to leave out because it’s such an important part of my lifestyle now, is at the Reeves house, you know, what, six or seven days a week you can go by there, you can get a coffee, a wine, a beer. You get there’s sandwich. I think maybe my buddy over at the Woodstock beer market maybe makes up some sandwiches periodically and brings sodas. Is that accurate?

Brian Gamel: [00:22:58] Yeah, he makes them, Danny Yeah, yeah. He does stuff periodically. And we also have started partnering with other local businesses too. So we used to buy our bagels from Kroger. No shame, but now we partner with a local bagel maker. Nagel’s Bagels.

Stone Payton: [00:23:12] Oh yeah. We had them in the.

Brian Gamel: [00:23:13] Studio and they’re fantastic. They actually in both sides of the bagel. So, you know, if you and your spouse are split in one, you don’t get the the bottom half of the bagel with no seasoning on it. But, you know, and we’ve started doing our own sandwiches with those types of things, too, some breakfast sandwiches, and we still have the waffles and all those fun things. But now the house is open seven days a week, Mondays, a little bit shorter hours, just because, you know, Mondays are relatively slow and we’re trying to build that staff, do all those fun things, but we’re constantly trying to pump out those events so that you guys have a lot of fun and something to do almost every day.

Stone Payton: [00:23:47] It’s not right.

Brian Gamel: [00:23:48] But yeah, it’s it’s always available. The coffee is fantastic. The tea is fantastic.

Stone Payton: [00:23:54] And it is. I like. I like what is the name? It’s the mint flavor.

Brian Gamel: [00:23:59] Oh, meant to be.

Stone Payton: [00:24:00] Meant to be.

Brian Gamel: [00:24:01] I’m a I’m a huge fan of the farmer’s market because it’s almost like a a hibiscus tea, but it has a little more of those fruity and herbal flavors to it.

Stone Payton: [00:24:10] And I’ll get that today.

Brian Gamel: [00:24:11] It’s really good. And I think we have a special right now with it where they throw a little bit of the ginger simple sirup in there. It’s nice and tasty, but yeah, no, they do a lot of great work over there. Riley, the manager over there now. She’s doing some awesome work. Liz and Marley, you’ll see over there as well. But yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:24:29] And is it is it the email that I get? I get do I get it from Libby?

Brian Gamel: [00:24:35] Libby. Yeah, that’s yeah. She is our marketing manager and she’s been she’ll send you out emails if you sign up for our email list and then you can also tailor what, what things you want from us. So if you’re just interested in the visual arts, you can sign up for that emailing list or lantern series or those things. But obviously we want everyone to know about everything. So if you have multiple interest, let’s get you on those paths. And one other thing I did want to mention, because new seasons up, people have been asking a lot of great questions. Subscriptions will be available soon. You can always fill out a form in person and give it to us and then we’ll we’ll put those into the system as soon as we get the brand new ticketing system that should be hitting us July 1st. All right. So the only way to get tickets at all up to this point is through a subscription. If you only like one event next season, then I’m so sorry for you. You should come to a lot more of them because you’ll like all of them. But if you’re like, Man, I really want tickets to just this one. Those don’t go live until July 1st at the earliest. So everything else is is available to get a full subscription. And that’s your best bang for your buck, too, especially at the theater, because we’re going to start doing tiered seating and the cheapest way to get the front row is through a subscription and it’s an insane deal. It’s so silly that people don’t take advantage of that. One more.

Stone Payton: [00:25:49] And the theater is over in the chambers building.

Brian Gamel: [00:25:52] In that building. So if you’re familiar with where rootstock or just rootstock where rootstock is, right, right behind that, that big building that looks like a church. Right? That’s us. So the city has the chambers in one half of it and we have our theater, our offices and everything else. And the other.

Stone Payton: [00:26:07] Half so fantastic. Okay, let’s wrap with with leaving our listeners with easy ways to find out more website. I think let’s mention Beth’s email again maybe for the.

Brian Gamel: [00:26:18] Yeah. Source websites Woodstock Arts dot org and worst case scenario, just always go back to the website Woodstock Arts dot org. You’ll have all the information you’ll need. But if you’re a business interested in a sponsorship that’s Beth Bette at Woodstock arts dot org email her there and then you can find us on all the normal social media channels Facebook, Instagram, we even have a Twitter, so.

Stone Payton: [00:26:40] Oh, fantastic. All right. Well, we will see you guys at any and all of those places that we described. We’re so blessed to have Woodstock arts here in this community and Brian Gammell coordinating things and captaining the ship. Thank you guys so much for what you’re doing, man.

Brian Gamel: [00:26:58] Thank you for everything you do.

Stone Payton: [00:26:59] Stone All right. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Brian Gammel with Woodstock Arts and everyone here at the business radio family saying we’ll see you next time on Cherokee Business Radio.