The mountains made the music. The music can carry the region.
Music born in these mountains now fills amphitheaters, anchors heritage trails, and drives hundreds of millions of dollars in visitor spending across four states. AMC exists to make sure that impact reaches the people and towns who make the music.
The sound doesn't stop at a state line.
AMC is anchored in Northeast Tennessee, but the region it serves runs through Southwest Virginia, Western North Carolina, and Eastern Kentucky just as deep. Four states, one shared community, all connected through our digital hub.
This region doesn't have one music scene. It has dozens, stacked on top of each other across four states and running back almost a hundred years to the Bristol Sessions. Blues, bluegrass, country, gospel, soul, rockabilly, and rock and roll all still run through this ground today, joined by classical, jazz, and hip hop. None of it is preserved behind glass. All of it is still being played here tonight.
The mountains bring the visit. Music brings it back.
Across our four states, arts and culture added $74.5 billion in economic value and supported nearly 445,000 jobs in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Nationally, the arts grew at more than twice the rate of the overall economy that year, with Tennessee and North Carolina posting some of the largest gains in the country. And every corner of AMC's footprint is setting visitor records at the same time.
Music is what turns those visits into local income. The national Arts and Economic Prosperity study found that arts attendees spend $38.46 per person with local merchants beyond the price of admission, on dinner, drinks, hotels, and shops. Nationally, nonprofit arts and culture alone generated $151.7 billion in economic activity and supported 2.6 million jobs. Every show booked in a downtown here sends that same ripple through the block around it.
None of it happens without artists to put on stage and rooms to put them in. The 2024 Northeast Tennessee Music Census found that 86% of the region's creatives taught themselves the trade, and the business side of the industry, the agents, managers, and services that sustain careers, makes up just 10.5% of the ecosystem. Those are the people holding up a four state economic engine, mostly on their own. Supporting artists, venues, and the people behind them isn't a nice extra. It's maintenance on infrastructure the region already depends on.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account (2023) · Arts and Economic Prosperity 6, Americans for the Arts · Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association · Virginia Tourism Corporation · Blue Ridge Parkway visitor spending, National Park Service · Kentucky Department of Tourism · 2024 Northeast Tennessee Music Census
A talent pipeline needs a business pipeline behind it.
The census was clear: 86% of the region's creatives are self-taught, and the industry sector, the agents, labels, and business services a healthy ecosystem needs, is undersized at just 10.5% of respondents. Closing that gap takes more than one school or one program. AMC is calling on colleges, universities, trade and technical schools, and industry partners of every size across the region to help build the training pipeline this economy needs. If your institution trains talent or runs a business this ecosystem depends on, that's an open invitation to partner with AMC.
Powered by community partners across the region.
These community partners recognized the importance of the 2024 Northeast Tennessee Music Census and helped make it happen.
The infrastructure doesn't build itself.
The history is already here. The visitors are already coming. AMC exists to turn that regional advantage into a coordinated economy. See the numbers, or help build it.