By Colin Killian, Public Communications Director
In this week’s episode of “What’s Up, College Station?” Grace Hallowell and Visit College Station’s Casey Barone discuss the worldwide Make Music Day, which will feature live music on streets, sidewalks, parks and other places across College Station on Saturday, June 21. Anyone can perform, and the music is free for all to enjoy!
For more information or to sign up to participate, go to makemusicday.org/college station.
The “What’s Up, College Station?” podcast is available weekly via Podbean, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon/Audible. Please subscribe, rate, and recommend!
If you have a suggestion for a future topic or interview, email me at ckillian@cstx.gov.
TRANSCRIPT
Grace Hallowell:
What’s up, College Station? I’m Grace Halowell, and today I’m joined by Casey Barone, the visitor engagement manager at Visit College Station. Hi, Casey.
The last time you were on the show, we were talking about some exciting events. You for several years were in charge of all of Visit College Station’s events, and we’re going to talk about another exciting event that we have coming up today, as well as the Music City designation that College Station has received through Visit College Station’s hard work. So Make Music Day is coming up in June. So let’s kind of start things off by talking about what is Make Music Day.
Casey Barone:
This is our second year participating in Make Music Day, which originated in France in 1982. Essentially, the thought was to have a day where you just celebrate music all day long. And so it’s celebrated on June 21, the summer solstice, essentially the longest day of the year. And it’s just a way to celebrate music all day. Anywhere you turn, kind of the concept of, there’s music playing. And so it is celebrated in over a thousand cities worldwide. And so we’re just so excited that College Station is part of that for the second year.
Grace Hallowell:
I feel like that’s something that rings true. You hear music everywhere you go, any day of the year in College Station, you walk to your favorite restaurant or down Northgate, there’s always music to hear.
Casey Barone:
The concept is that the city is just full of music, and it’s just almost like a day of concerts kind of vibe. One of the things that is so important is that it can be any genre; anybody can open the drawers as a hosting location. You don’t have to be at a music venue. You could be at a park, a street corner, a, let’s just say merchandise-selling store. Anybody, anybody. So we’ve got some locations already signed up, and people can sign up until the very moment of Make Music Day if they want to be a hosting location. And then musicians can sign up to perform at those locations. We’ve got some great locations signed up this year, a few different from last year, which is really great. We’re trying to get the word out about that, and we’re just excited to celebrate Make Music Day.
Grace Hallowell:
I remember attending one of the events you hosted at the Welcome Center, located at 1207, last year. It was the boomwhacker class, which was a lot of fun. If you guys don’t know what boomwhackers are, they’re different-sized tubes that make a different tone when you put them on the ground.
Casey Barone:
Last year, we did a little educational component because it was on a Friday. This year is a Saturday. We have limited availability to venues where we can provide something like that, so this year we’re really just honing in on getting locations to sign up and host musicians.
But that was so fun. And that’s kind of just the concept that goes around with it as well, that we really want any kind of age to participate, and even signing up to play at these locations. You can be a seasoned musician or you can be just starting out. And what’s really great is that you hear some of these stories about these musicians that are like, “I performed at my first venue on Make Music Day.” Because it is, it’s just, it doesn’t seem like it’s so much pressure on them that they can just be like, “Let me get my toes wet.”
And then as you’re making your own schedule on the Music Day website, you can be like, “Listen, I only want to play for 30 minutes.” And you can do that. That’s what’s great about it, in a way, is that it’s more organic and allows you to make it work for you as a musician and a hosting location.
Grace Hallowell:
Something that goes into that is our Music City designation. I think we’ve touched on it before, but as a refresher, what does that designation mean for our city?
Casey Barone:
We became a music-friendly community in November 2023. We’ve just been trying to find ways to support our local musicians. I think that’s kind of where we’ve landed in our certification, and how we want to promote that by supporting local musicians. This is just another way of doing that. And we’ve talked about Hang Out & Tune In. We’ve partnered with the Texas Music Office through various initiatives to maintain our certification and show that we’re still supporting, that we’re still giving our certification purpose, and that we want to continue to be a Texas music-friendly city instead of just having a certificate or a ceremony for it. We want to be actively involved.
Grace Hallowell:
Where can people find out more information about Make Music Day and the music-friendly designation?
Casey Barone:
So for Music Friendly, they can go to our Visit College Station website. As far as Make Music Day, that website is makemusicday.org/collegestation. If somebody wants to sign up to be a hosting location, there are steps to doing that. And you just create your profile as well as a musician if you want to sign up to participate in the locations.
Now, if you’re just looking to enjoy Make Music Day and hop around through the locations that are participating, there’ll be a map that shows who’s playing where. We are going to do a whole social media takeover on our Visit College Station Facebook and Instagram the week leading up to Make Music Day. That will really push out all the information that you need. Some of the locations participating are Reveille Rooftop Bar, at the Hilton in Cavalry Court, Red’s Ice House, The Yard, Stage 12, and the Dixie Chicken.
We are also partnering with Century Square and having an evening event because it’s going to be warm on the first day of summer. We’re partnering with Century Square and Sonic Sounds, a local booking agency, to provide a closing event for Make Music Day that will be out there tabling and providing information to anybody who comes out and visits. We’re really excited about this year, and hopefully, we just have people come out and want to check it all out and enjoy music all day long. And it’s all free. So that’s a requirement. It has to be free music, so wherever you go, just know you’re going to go see some free live music.
Grace Hallowell:
Free music is the best kind.
Casey Barone:
Any genre, too. That’s what’s so great. So we’ve got some rock bands, some soul singers, some country singers that are already signed up, and we would love more to participate as well.
Grace Hallowell:
All right, well thank you so much for joining me today, Casey.
About the Blogger
Colin Killian has been with the City of College Station since 2010 after serving 23 years as the associate media relations director for the Texas A&M Athletics Department. He has also worked as a reporter and editor for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and Lewisville News. A native of Hobbs, N.M., Killian graduated from Texas Tech with a bachelor’s degree in journalism/political science.
If you liked this post, share it with the buttons below!
