When the Spirit of Suwannee Music Park last spring announced the dates for its 2018 Hulaween Music Festival, it was a eagerly awaited announcement about the latest in more than 30 years of live events and music education from the family business James Cornett leads today.
As President and CEO of Cornett’s Spirit of the Suwannee, Inc., James carries on what parents Bob and Miss Jean started as bluegrass festivals back in their native Kentucky. It was the quintessential “family business” with James, just 12 at the time, selling tickets and picking up trash.
In 1985, his parents were looking to move to Florida. Someone mentioned the Spirit of Suwannee park, which had been closed by the county a few years earlier. The couple was intrigued. Local business leaders laughed. “They were thinking they were nuts,” James remembers. “They said, ‘It will never work.’”
They leased the park from the county for what would be 12 years, before buying it in 1997.
Early acts included B.B. King, the Neville Brothers, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. James soon convinced Fantasma Productions to produce a show there anchored by the Allman Brothers Band. “Wanee” debuted in 2005.
It’s also been host to Aura, Bear Creek, Suwannee River Jam, and Suwannee Roots Revival. This month, SOSMP will host the second annual Spring Reunion. Each October is Hulaween, hosted by String Cheese Incident – a most-see closer to the annual festival season.
More than a festival venue, Spirit of Suwannee Music Park is a revered campground that draws members and camping enthusiasts from around the country. It’s part of what lures fans back, and keeps James Cornett excited about the business.
What has delivered the park’s staying power? There’s an awful lot of moving parts and it takes a lot of business to keep the machine going. The park is open 365 days a year, with about 10 major events a year, live music four nights a week in the Music Hall along River Road… Bonnaroo was a tipping point for the industry. We were about 15 years old. About that time, the industry started exploding with outdoor, multi-day festivals. We were already on the map at that point and we started seeing new shows coming here and being successful.
You sold the community on the economic impact you’d bring. How has that borne out? We have 40 full-time staff. During a show that swells to about 1,000. In about 2011, graduate students from Florida State University did a study that showed we’d do about $34 million and bring 250 jobs in the county, and 540 in the state. I’m confident that it’s at that and then some. We’ve grown some since then. The community understands we’re generating jobs and economic impact. The days we were just a bunch of trouble making hippies are in the rear view mirror.
What makes the park special? It’s the community. We have 800 acres. I’m not sure how much we use, a lot is pretty natural. We have the highest ground on the Suwannee, the most pristine. Part of what we bring is the amenity package, full bathhouses, roads, power, restaurants, stores. The infrastructure is there so as you grow older, you move to the pop-up camper to the RV to a cabin. The community built around four days of music is far more powerful than anything going on up on that stage. The fox and deer are part of what we’re selling. I don’t ever see that going away.