Auditorium 51 Concert Series Comes to Mt. Sequoyah

Staff Photo Nick Brothers
(From left to right) Jessica Sumner, Amy Lusu and Deme Reynolds sit together on the stage at Auditorium 51.

Presented by the producers of Homegrown On The River Music Festival comes Auditorium 51, a concert series on Mt. Sequoyah.

The first show of the upcoming quarterly concert series will be Willie Watson and local bluegrass group Arkansauce on Valentines Day, Tuesday, Feb. 14.

A show in June, October for Halloween and December this year are in the works. A variety of genres beyond folk and bluegrass will be featured in those concerts, said Jessica Sumner, executive director for Auditorium 51.

The venue, which is being called Auditorium 51, is located atop Mt. Sequoyah at the campground’s concert hall space, otherwise known as Clapp Auditorium, at 150 N Skyline Dr. The promoters of the series are renting the event space from the Mt. Sequoyah Retreat and Conference Center.

File Photo by Ironside Photography
Willie Watson, seen here performing at 2014’s Harvest Music Festival in Ozark, Ark., will perform at Auditorium 51 Feb. 14. Watson will be the first in a quarterly 2017 concert series at the venue.

The space holds about 300 people, and while many of the pews will be removed for dance floor space, a few will remain for those looking to sit during the concert.

For comparison, the front of house stage inside George’s Majestic Lounge holds 250 people. Sound production and lights will be brought in to provide for the live music experience.

Tickets for the Willie Watson and Arkansauce show are $20 and are available online at homegrownontheriver.com/auditorium51/.

Physical tickets are available for purchase at Fayetteville’s Funky Yardsale and The Glass Station. For those looking to make a full evening out of Valentines Day on Mt. Sequoyah, cabins are available to rent at mountsequoyah.org/lodging/. The show is for adults 21 and older only.

The concert series will be the first of its kind for the Mt. Sequoyah venue.

The venue’s location near downtown Fayetteville made the location preferable, Sumner said. After the success of Homegrown Music Festival this past fall, Sumner said she had been on the look out for a place to host year-round events. Once she found out about the indoor stage at the campgrounds, she knew she had found her spot.

“It checked off a lot of boxes for us,” Sumner said. “Vibe-wise, we were looking for a real kitschy feel. When we walked into this place, I was like, this is perfect. This is like summer camp or church camp.”

Staff Photo Nick Brothers
Auditorium 51 will be able to hold and sell out at 300 concert-goers. Several rows of pews will be removed from the front to make way for a dance floor. A few pews will remain for seating.

With the help of friends Deme Reynolds and Amy Lusu, the group are going to decorate and ready the space for the event, but will retain the simplistic aesthetic of the space for the “summer camp” vibe.

The Willie Watson show is described as “an indoor show with outdoor perks.” Across from the venue, there is a patio space with patio furniture, strung lights and a fire pit that will be set up for concert-goers to hang out during the show and in between acts. A public hospitality room next to the patio will also be open, where drinks are available and likely where some information booths from the festival’s nonprofit partners will be, such as Art Feeds NWA.

Nomad’s Natural Plate food truck will also be on hand for dining during the event.

Staff Photo Nick Brothers
Outside, across from Auditorium 51, the patio space will be available with the fire pit active and Nomad’s Natural Plate food truck nearby. The building left of the patio will be open to the public as a hospitality room with drinks and local nonprofit information booths.

Beer and wine will be available during the concert. Continuing the successful green initiatives from Homegrown, the event will be free of single-use plastic. Sumner said she encourages everyone to bring reusable 16 oz. cups for drinks — as many major music festivals in the area have adopted, including Homegrown. Guests without reusable glasses will be able to purchase cups to keep for $5 during the concert.

“We can bring a little bit of the festival experience here for one night,” Sumner said. “Not everyone can go to a festival for three days and turn off everything in their life, or want to even. We just want to put our spin on live music here in town with our hospitality and our ideas and we think we found the perfect place for that.”

The church camp atmosphere of the venue isn’t lost on the promoters.

“Music, in a lot of ways, is a spiritual thing for me because it moves me physically and emotionally and influences my life. So this is kind of my idea of church,” Lusu said. “It’s great because we’re doing this where others go to church in a more literal sense as well.”

Staff Photo Nick Brothers
(From left to right) Amy Lusu, Jessica Sumner and Deme Reynolds stand together outside of Auditorium 51, which is a part of the Mt. Sequoyah Retreat and Confrence Center.

You can follow the upcoming updates regarding the venue and the concert series on the group’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/auditorium51/.