Walking to the Wayne Theatre Friday night, there was a wave of people at the corner of Main and Wayne in Downtown Waynesboro around 7:20 p.m.
Several different groups were making their way from the direction of the 400 block of Main Street up the street toward the Wayne as the clock ticked toward the start of the River City Radio Hour.
Best guess: folks had eaten dinner downtown before the show.
That’s what you can refer to as economic activity right there.
We get to the Wayne, without a ticket, and end up in line, pretty deep in line. We weren’t the only walk-ups.
I have an insight that others don’t, since Augusta Free Press is the marketing partner of the Wayne, and we wake up every morning and go to sleep every night, technically morning, since we rarely hit the pillow before midnight, thinking about what we need to do to sell more tickets.
The River City Radio Hour show for April had passed the 300 ticket mark earlier in the week. The venue holds 385, so we were chancing it getting tickets at the last minute.
And ended up sitting a couple of rows from the top as a result.
Good thing is, there isn’t a bad seat in the house, and sitting up top offered an interesting perspective.
The place was packed, and to the critics on the Waynesboro City Council who say the Wayne has nothing to offer people who live in Waynesboro, it seemed that half of Waynesboro in the audience with us.
It’s hyperbole to say that I saw practically everybody I know there Friday night, but it sure felt that way.
I’d like to give the Wayne and their brilliant marketing team credit for this, but I can’t, because honestly, we had no idea the Radio Hour would do anywhere near this well.
The show is in its ninth season, the first eight as a traveling show, playing here, there and everywhere that would have it, in the long walk-up to the effort to get the Wayne renovated and re-opened.
Friday’s Radio Hour was the first in the new Wayne.
It was breathtaking.
Wanda and the White Boys, a local favorite that played its last show in 2011, were the top of the marquee with their reunion.
Comedian Brett Leake, who has appeared on, among things, “The Tonight Show,” performed two sets, and was at the top of his game for both.
“The Dreaded Blues Lady” Lorie Strother and the soulful Kevin Chisnell performed their hearts out.
The Boogie Kings were, well, The Boogie Kings, entertaining with music and comedy bits also featuring the emcee, the director emeritus of the Wayne Theatre Alliance, Clair Myers.
In addition to half of Waynesboro, the audience included a couple from Maryland celebrating a 25th wedding anniversary, and another couple celebrating an anniversary hailing from Richmond.
Best guess there: two couples staying in a local hotel or bed and breakfast, and eating out at least Friday night, if not making an entire weekend of it.
Have to assume we had more out-of-towners, but those were the folks who got mentioned during the show, and serenaded with “Happy Anniversary to you!” by The Boogie Kings and folks in the audience.
So you had those folks from out of town spending money on accommodations, you had those folks and locals in restaurants, you had the whole shebang going on in the theatre, with more than 300 paying $15 a ticket to be there, and folks queuing up at concessions before the show and at intermission.
But in the infinite wisdom of the City Council, and the city manager, Mike Hamp, this is of no value to the local tax base.
Locals don’t have anything to see at the Wayne, they say, and nothing on the schedule at the theatre will draw people in from out of town, and get people to stay in our inns and eat in our restaurants.
Funny, none of the naysayers were in the house to see for themselves all of this activity that they say isn’t going on at the Wayne.
Probably too busy canceling their schedule of work sessions to discuss the 2016-2017 city budget that won’t include the first of several contributions toward the $11 million investment into the theatre that had been agreed upon many years ago.
Details, like not reneging on economic-development agreements, not paying any mind to a high school that is in danger of crumbling to the ground, are lost on these, ahem, air quotes, city leaders.
Too bad for them. Maybe if they’d climb down from their ivory towers to join the rest of us who actually want to participate in city life, enjoying a night downtown, eating in our restaurants, taking in a show packed with local talents with fellow city residents, they’d figure some things out.
For whatever reason, their focus is on doing everything they can to close the doors of the Wayne and squeeze the life from the downtown restaurants.
Wouldn’t it be nice if they joined the rest of us who want to build on all the good things we have going on in spite of the lack of support from city leaders?
Yes, that’s asking a lot, I know.
As in, asking them to do their damn jobs.
Our potential as a city is right there in front of us. And it had a rollicking good goddamn time Friday night in a packed theatre full of people celebrating another step in the direction toward Moving Waynesboro Forward.
Column by Chris Graham
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