Tim McGraw performs during the "Standing Room Only" tour on Friday, June 14, 2024, in Atlanta. (Photo by Paul R. Giunta/Invision/AP)

YOUNGSTOWN — “Summer Starts with a Song,” according to JAC Live and JAC Management, and it plans to keep the music going until a week after summer’s official end with Y-Live.

JAC Management operates the city-owned Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre and Covelli Centre, and JAC Live promotes concerts at those venues, Mahoning Valley sites including the Canfield Fairgrounds and Packard Music Hall, as well as in several markets nationwide.

It estimates the economic impact for the city from its amphitheater events will be $5 million this year, and that number will double after the Y-Live concert at Wean Foundation Park with Tim McGraw on Sept. 27.

JAC Owner and President Eric Ryan said the “Summer Starts with a Song” initiative was started to make the public aware of how much happens at its venues.

“As we make our travels throughout the Valley, you have a lot of people who say, ‘Oh, you sit empty a lot,'” Ryan said. “Well, no, we actually don’t. Just in downtown, we have over 40 events going on. That’s a lot of events to draw people to and to have.”

That figure includes concerts by national touring acts at the two downtown venues JAC operates, annual events it hosts (the just finished Simply Slavic festival and the upcoming Jazz & Wine event in July) and numerous free events, from the outdoor movies in Wean Foundation Park, First Friday concert at the amphitheater and the Juneteenth celebration on Saturday and Sunday.

“The reason why we do the community events is to drive more people to come downtown and to enjoy the place,” Ryan said.

The amphitheater got off to a record-breaking start May 29 with country star Riley Green bringing more than 5,000 people to the venue, followed by the Rock the Rich Center benefit with Lita Ford and the Vindys, and a co-headlining show with Coheed and Cambria and Mastodon, all within a four-day span.

“He could have easily sold out the amphitheater three nights,” Ryan said of Green. “He could have sold 15,000 tickets. There’s no doubt about it. So that was certainly a huge one to start the season with.”

Not only was the amphitheater packed, but so were downtown bars and restaurants before the shows, Ryan said. And the city’s DORA (Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area) allowed concertgoers to walk back and forth from the bars to the amp with an adult beverage in hand.

The remaining concert season at the amphitheater includes several acts who’ve played the Mahoning Valley in the past, including Rick Springfield (June 28), Train (Aug. 12), Alice Cooper (Aug. 17) and Lee Brice (Sept. 18).

“They love the venue, and their previous shows have always done well,” Ryan said. “Don’t fix what’s not broken.”

JAC will close out summer with another busy four-day stretch, with Mudvayne at the Covelli Centre the day before Brice and Cody Jinks at the amphitheater two days after him.

That’s not design, Ryan said. It’s just the way things happen.

“We don’t necessarily pick the dates,” he said. “If there’s a show out there and there’s any chance that they would play any of our facilities, there’s an offer out. Then, when they do routing, they come back and say, ‘Hey, will this day work?’ And either you say yes or no, and if you say no, most of the time it’s, ‘Well, we’re not playing Youngstown.’

“It’s not like, I sit back and say, ‘Oh, we want to have all that bunched up in a big weekend’, but that’s when they were available, and we either have to play it then or don’t play it. I think a lot of people think we sit back and we decide when something’s going to happen.”

The busiest weekend of all comes the following week on Sept. 27 with Y-Live, which traditionally draws more than 20,000 people to Wean Foundation Park. This year’s headliner is Tim McGraw in a show that was postponed from 2024 because of the Realty Tower explosion.

While JAC was able to reschedule with McGraw, they weren’t able to keep Warren Zeiders as his direct support. Ryan said they will be announcing the other acts for Y-Live in the next week or two.