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Date: 7/18/2023
AMHERST — Music returns to kick off the warm weather weekends with the Business Improvement District’s third annual Friday Night Summer Concert Series on the South Common.
Beginning July 21 with the UMass Jazz In July All Star Concert, the series runs through August 11 with appearances by children’s performer MISTER G, blues singer-songwriter Erik Lee as well as Dawn LePere, Moondance and ending with Naomi Nye and Kimaya Diggs.
“When we’re sort of curating these nights, we try to try to get a little something for everybody,” said Amherst Downtown BID Executive Director Gabrielle Gould. “We go into the blues and country genre, we go into the jazz, the folk and this year we’re really excited to have [Moondance] the ultimate Van Morrison tribute band coming so we try to do a balance of local acts and visiting acts and do a little something for everybody.”
Gould said the BID’s metric is about how the businesses downtown are doing.
“Everything the BID does is about promoting our downtown and supporting small business,” she said.
Beer and wine will again be available on the common courtesy of local breweries Abandoned Building and White Lion Brewing together with wine and cider purveyors Artifact and Black Birch Vineyards.
“We try to keep our wine and beer super local,” Gould said.
Gould said the previous year’s events received great turnout and popularity with many people grabbing takeout food from local eateries before, during or after the performances.
One sight attendees are not likely to see on show nights is a common one many other days and nights during the year; food trucks.
“We’ve purposely stayed away from that to ensure that the brick and mortar places are getting attention and that business is coming to them via this,” she said.
Gould said the performance events go a long way in showcasing the downtown area.
“Attendance is amazing which is fantastic and it’s doing quite a job really bringing people into our downtown,” Gould said. “It’s hard to get parking those evenings and that means we are doing our job so we feel very excited about bringing the series back again this year.”
Each night’s performances start at 6 p.m.
More information can be found at amherstdowntown.com