MOUNT VERNON – The Mount Vernon Arts Consortium (MVAC) continued its second year of programming on Friday, March 3, with comedian Paul Reiser, adding plans for country and bluegrass singer-songwriter Marty Stuart to perform April 8.

The MVAC was created to amplify the performing arts, cultural arts and education programming in the community, its executive director, Martin Booker, told the Mount Vernon News.

As a supporting arm of the Knox County Foundation, MVAC looks at local venues through the community perspective and through an economic development perspective, he said.

He said MVAC presents events at the 500-seat Woodward Opera House, the oldest authentic opera house in the country, the 1,000-seat historic theater in the Knox County Memorial and Ariel Foundation Park with its Schnormeier Event Center. The events are in collaboration with the venues.

A few years ago, a discussion was held to figure out what an organization might look like if it was coordinating efforts for events at the three venues, Knox County Foundation Executive Director Jeff Scott said. Out of that was born the Mount Vernon Arts Consortium.

Each of those venues continues to operate independently, but they’ve got a partner helping them to find the right fit and make sure they avoid issues like having big concerts on the same night, Scott said.

The artists are chosen by who best represents the community and its values and if the artist can attract visitors from Columbus and Cleveland, Booker said. MVAC uses performances by Clint Black or Amy Grant to showcase the community.

This year, MVAC brought Reiser to perform on Friday, March 3, at the Knox Memorial Theater at 112 East High St., followed by Stuart on April 8 at the Woodward Opera House at 107 S. Main St.

“Marty Stuart is a country icon and we’re doing a special show with him,” he said. “And that will be at the Woodward Opera House.”

The performers help market the community and their performances through called media in which they do interviews with state newspapers, radio ads and appear on local TV stations, he said.

“Essentially, we have a lot of resources in this town,” Booker said. “We have an amazing resident theatre company. We have a festival company. We have an opera house. We have a 1,000-seat theater, we have a big beautiful outdoor venue at the park.”

This year, the community has pulled all its arts organizations together under the banner of Mount Vernon Presents, he said.

MTVarts will present “Suessical Jr.” and the Thornton Wilder play, “Our Town.” The Community Concert Association will bring DIVAS3, the Kenny Rogers Band featuring Don Gatlin and Winds of Ohio.

“It really allows all these different organizations to market themselves in a way that they couldn't, because it was cost prohibitive,” he said.

Booker said MVAC works with great partners like the Knox County Convention and Visitors Bureau and Experience Mount Vernon, he said. The acts that perform at the local venues help promote the community and its opportunities like the Kokosing Gap Trail, The Heart of Ohio Trail, kayaking and fishing.

Measuring economic impact is in the early stages, Laura Hess, the board chair of the Knox County Visitors Bureau, said. MVAC invested in a ticket management system that streamlines the customer experience. Tickets can be purchased on MVAC's website, mvac.org/events.

“Not only does it save our partners from additional overhead expenses, but we can track ticket sales and better understand our attendees,” she said. “Right now, we know approximately one-third of attendees of MVAC events are coming from out of town, bringing additional visibility and foot traffic to Mount Vernon.”

They can use past attendance information to focus marketing efforts to grow the local venues’ market share, she said.

Hess said MVAC funding comes from ticket sales, partnership sponsorships, a venue management fee arrangement with the Knox Memorial Board, technical services fees billed to venues and/or venue renters, in-kind support provided to MVAC toward some marketing services, American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funding and startup grants.

The Knox County Commissioners contributed $300,000 in 2021 and $200,000 in 2022 in ARPA funding, County Administrator Jason Booth said.

“The commissioners just believed that this was a strong economic investment in the community,” he said. “And so that’s why those dollars were allocated toward the venues.”

The ARPA investment was to maximize the reach of arts and entertainment in the community and to coordinate those activities at the three venues, Booth said. Coordination through MVAC helped each venue recover from revenue lost due to the pandemic, which helped spur economic recovery for restaurants, hotels and local stores.

Record numbers of customers and patrons have been seen on the nights of the bigger events, he said.

The county owns the Knox Memorial Building, which was built in 1925. The commissioners had set a goal to get more Knox residents to use the building.

“As any government entity, we probably weren’t the best at marketing and managing an arts venue,” Booth said.

The commissioners signed a lease with the Knox County Memorial Building Board and they manage and market the building. He said the commissioners feel proud that it is being used by more community groups and being marketed for larger-scale acts like Black.

The community is just recovering from the pandemic, but it caused changes that add challenges for the Arts Consortium. Mount Vernon is a rural community with a wonderful aging population, Booker said. It’s taking time to build trust back up after COVID.

But the pandemic taught people to live a different way, so getting people involved in the arts community has taken extra effort. This season “A Christmas Story” was performed at the Knox Memorial theater after its cancellation the previous year.

“We just didn’t think that it was a smart thing to be having these amounts of people together,” Booker said. “Those are actually really tough decisions.”

He returned to his roots in Knox County when he was hired in 2021 to run the MVAC.

“When I came back, I was really taken aback by the amount of investment that had gone into downtown in the theaters,” he said. “It was true investment, true thought, true vision.”

Booker saw a group of organizations working diligently and doing good work, but they were working separately.

“It’s very easy to say we'll come together and make something happen, but it takes a lot of relationship building, trust and timing,” he said.

What drives him and his vision is that what’s taking place is “a true rural Renaissance,” Booker said.