Between the months of May and September, the sounds of live music and cheering crowds will reverberate through the city. The RiversEdge Concert Series is heading into its 8th year and there are big things planned for Hamilton.
Last year alone, more than 30,000 people from 34 states and 3 countries attended the concerts at RiversEdge. The estimated impact on the community was more than $1 million. RiversEdge has definitely grown from its humble beginnings in 2012, when founder Adam Helms put on the city’s very first concert series.
Adam moved to Hamilton in 2010 from the Green Bay area. As a 25-year old single guy, he was looking for things to do in the area when summer rolled around.
“That was my first summer here, and I realized there wasn’t much going on here after 5 o’clock,” Adam said.
He knew there were plans for the amphitheater by the river, but after asking around, nobody had a clear plan for how they were going to use the area. In 2011, he began laying the groundwork for the first concert series to take place in 2012. It was a tough challenge, as the concert series had no budget and solely relied on sponsorship and donations, but Adam made it happen and was able to put on a 6-concert series his first year out the gate.
“The whole aim of that year was just to get people used to the concept that on Thursdays, there was going to be live music,” he explained. “It was all about getting people used to the concept, knowing that RiversEdge was going to open up in 2013.”
Prior to the opening of RiversEdge, there was no set venue for the concert series. Adam relied on multiple locations to make it happen during his first year, including a parking garage. Once RiversEdge was finished, doors began to open up for the concerts.
In 2014, the RiversEdge concert series was in full swing and the city’s interest was rapidly growing. David Shaw, the frontman for New Orleans-based band The Revivalists and Hamilton native, joined forces with Adam to lay the groundwork to expand the concert series. In 2015, they added a one-day music festival to the concert line-up, and thus the Big River Getdown was born.
The Revivalists have been playing at the concert series since its very beginning. Over the years, they have grown in popularity, but they still make it a point to come home to Hamilton every year to perform.
“As The Revivalists have grown in popularity, so has the RiversEdge concert series,” Adam said.
Since then, the concert series has grown to add more shows and another music festival called Whimmydiddle.
“It got way more popular than I ever thought it was going to,” Adam said. “My intent was to do six shows a year, and now we’re doing 15 shows a year.”
Planning a show like this takes a lot of dedication and time. Adam starts planning in October, and he doesn’t wrap up until the final show finishes in the beginning of September the following year. He gets a few weeks to recover before he’s back at it planning for the next series.
One of the biggest changes this year from last year is the admission fee for Whimmydiddle. A portion of the proceeds earned are donated to the parks conservancy, who manages and maintains the park at RiversEdge, and the remainder goes back into the concert fund to pay bands. Additionally, the admission fee for David Shaw’s Big River Getdown also go to benefit the city, with half of those proceeds going towards Hamilton’s Fourth of July fireworks show. Since 2015, the Big River Getdown has generated $75,000 for RiversEdge and the fireworks.
There are 15 concerts planned for this season’s series, including surprise guest, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, for the Fourth of July show honoring Jared Whalen.
“This whole thing isn’t possible without the support of the community,” Adam said. “When you have a whole community pulling in the same direction, this is what you get. The roots run deep in this town.”