HUTTO – Windows shook and neighbors complained from as far as 15 miles away last time a major concert was held in Brushy Creek Amphitheater, 1001 County Road 137 at Adam Orgain Park.
The date was Jan. 8, 2021, the concert was Deadmau5, and the result was the city halting concerts at the venue until a noise abatement study could be done. This month, the city took steps to reinstate concerts at the BCA.
“My vision for Hutto is I want to see bands like KISS and James Taylor and Jason Aldean play here,” said Chris Stone, a partner at venue management firm The Directors of Chaos or The DOC.
At the April 20 meeting, the City Council approved a proposal to contract with The DOC to arrange and manage concerts at the amphitheater. The firm will organize the events in accordance with recommendations from a noise
abatement study. The noise study, completed in September 2021 by Roland, Woolworth & Associates LLC, recommended either relocating the amphitheater or enclosing it within a building. The study also recommended more financially viable options including architectural noise control, sound system direction, sound level limits, genre selection and other approaches to try and minimize the noise nuisance.
“We’ll design systems and rigging to reduce sound levels escaping the park,” said Tim Pioppo, partner at The DOC. “We’re going to focus on booking genres that don’t really rely on the loudness or lowend bass, gearing more towards country, classic rock, comedy those kinds of things especially in the beginning,” he said.
The firm plans to organize a minimum of 10 concerts from July through the end of 2023, starting with lower capacity events to grow the venue and help develop a stronger 2024 event calendar, according to Stone.
The contract gives the city $3 per ticket sold, as well as 15% of net sales for each event of over 2500 people. On smaller events the city would receive 12.5% of net sales.
The DOC contract also states the city would not be responsible for any losses and would be fully insulated from any financial risk.
Company representatives said annual events like the free Fourth of July celebration and KOKEfest, which does not use the BCA stage, would still be part of the line-up.
“The idea is we want to make a partnership. We want to be a part of those events. Creating a strong community environment around projects like this is paramount,” Pioppo said.
Before the council passed the resolution to hire the management firm, Mayor Mike Snyder questioned the partners on several points, including their company history, a lack of restroom facilities at the venue and the upcoming complete reconstruction of County Road 137.
“The facility isn’t a good representation of Hutto,” Snyder said. “It’s missing toilets, missing water, we’re going to blow this road up...I feel this all has to happen before we go and bring thousands of people to an event.”
Snyder cast the sole vote against the resolution.
“Part of what we do is festivals where we are bringing in full facilities, and working with us helps you quicker bring in money and pay for upgrades from income instead of your budget,” said Pioppo.
“We’d take a look at what those plans are going to be (for CR 137) and work on a solution,” added Stone. “That’s what we do best. That’s why we’re the Directors of Chaos. We find the problems, and we make things happen. There’s always a solution.”
