BamaJam success boosts Country Crossing project

Midway through the BamaJam Music & Arts Festival weekend, Ronnie Gilley whips out his cell phone and starts reading.
“I’ve got 150 text messages,” he says, reading a line from each:

“Congratulations,” comes a message from Atlanta.

“You hit a grand slam,” reads another text.

“It’s unbelievable,” he continues reading.

“Wow, that’s great!”

“You have done a fantastic job.”

“I don’t even know these people,” Gilley says. “Ninety percent of them are people I don’t know. Four-hundred-and-fifty texts have come in the last 12 hours.”

This is after he’s been given two-day attendance figures by the gate folks.

“There were 81,000 people on the premises we were able to account for,” he says. “A lot of those were comp tickets that were given away, but either way, this is historical. This is monumental, especially for a first-year event.”

Gilley, a native of Enterprise, can’t help but be excited at the numbers, which eventually rose Saturday night to 111,000 for the Main Stage finale, featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd and Hank Williams Jr.

It is a phenomenal figure for any festival, but especially for a new one in nearby Coffee County, Alabama.

“Jimmy Carter, who has a syndicated radio show out of Nashville, went on the air and said the BamaJam event has overshadowed the CMA (Country Music Association) Fan Fair (also held this past weekend) in Nashville,” he said.
“For those people who said we couldn’t pull it off, we did,” he said. “We expected 20,000 to 30,000 people the entire weekend. We more than tripled the anticipated number.”

On Saturday, when 15 of the 38 entertainers on the roster are set to perform, the gates were opened a bit early.
“At 6:30 this morning there were 900 people out there ready to come in the gate,” Gilley said. “The gates didn’t open until 11. We had all of these people waiting to come in.”

The weekend festival, which cost about $4 million to put on, is viewed as a stamp of approval for the country music entertainment Mecca which Gilley plans to build just south of Dothan.

Spurred by BamaJam’s unprecedented success, Gilley can see the pieces falling together for Country Crossing, which will be the site of all future BamaJam Festivals.

“From an economic standpoint, this is what I’ve been saying about Country Crossing,” Gilley said. “This is an unorthodox approach to economic development. Any politician that doesn’t know that is not seeing what’s taking place.”

Gilley delved often into that political arena this past weekend. Gilley often took to the Main Stage and thanked Houston County Commissioners by name. He also gave accolades to Rep. Terry Spicer, who has supported the project from the start.

Not every politician has.

Country Crossing, with partners James Stroud, Joel Katz, George Jones, Tracy Lawrence, John Anderson, Lorrie Morgan, and others, is expected to break ground as soon as Gilley’s group gets clear title to the land and the land plan is complete – hopefully in the next few weeks.

“We’ve been saying forever that we’re going to break ground in 90 days,” he says. “I don’t want to say 90 days anymore.”
But Gilley has hit a few snags along the way.

He’s been pulled into the political scene in an election year after Houston County promulgated existing electronic bingo rules to allow bingo at the development. A local state representative running for a national congressional seat then introduced legislation that would call for a vote on bingo.

Rep. Harri Anne Smith dropped the bingo legislation after she heard “in no uncertain terms,” she said, to do so by her constituency.

Gilley urged people to vote for leaders.

“A lot of opportunity is being generated. You can’t tell me Country Crossing is not a good project. We will be advertising entertainment, not some guy standing up there holding a big cardboard check that says ‘I won $60,000 playing bingo.’”
He sees the region’s economic forecast changing with increased tourism and Country Crossing. But he still hears the naysayers.

“In most cases, jealousy arrives by way of ignorance,” he said. “People said, Hank Jr., ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd – they’re not coming…. They all came. The artists are saying ‘This is the biggest show we’ve seen in 10 years. This is incredible. We can’t wait to come back.’

“That’s the response,” he said.

That’s the response to BamaJam 2008.