If you go
› What: Road to Nightfall preliminaries. › When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 11 and 12 (preliminary rounds 3-5 are March 17-19). › Where: Granfalloon, 400 E. Main St. › Admission: $7. › Phone: 423-605-2334. › Website: gigcityproductions.com/road-to-nightfall-2016.
The bands
› Friday, March 11: Nick Lutsko, Dylan Ireland & The Smoke, Genki Genki Panic, The Scarlet Love Conspiracy, PLVNET and Sam Killed The Bear› Saturday, March 12: Long Haul, Pluto’s Advantage, Preston Parris Band, Shabti, Big Green Funk and Marlow Drive› Thursday, March 17: SunSap, Magic Birds, High Meadows Communion, Earl Brackin, Legal Adult and The Road Runners› Friday, March 18: Danimal Planet, The Giant & The Tailor, Jesse Jungkurth, Mendingwall, Dr. B & The Ease and Backwater Still› Saturday, March 19: Krystye Dalton Band, Subkonscious, T.J.G. & The 423’s, Caney Creek Company, Steadfast Soul and Sexy Sullivan
The prizes
The winner of each preliminary round will win $500 in cash and a chance to open for a Nightfall concert. The winner and runner-up of the juried final round on March 26 will win a second prize of $1,500 and $500, respectively. The winner will headline a Nightfall concert and gets 25 hours of recording time at the Soundry Studio in Soddy-Daisy and three rehearsal sessions at Practica Galactica.
Ever since he masterminded the Road to Nightfall’s creation in 2010, Jonathan Susman says the annual battle of the bands and its pool of competitors have continually surprised him.
As the event prepares to enter its seventh season with a series of preliminary rounds beginning this weekend, Susman says it’s provided invaluable inspiration and insight into the diversity and skill of Chattanooga’s music scene.
“It’s made every bit of difference as far as helping me,” he says.
After returning to Chattanooga after several years living in Nashville, Susman conceived of the Road to Nightfall while working as the media coordinator for Chattanooga Presents, the event’s parent company. The battle’s structure – early rounds decided by popular vote and a juried final round – is based on a Music City competition, the Road to Bonnaroo, which guaranteed the winning band a spot at the summer music festival.
In addition to cash prizes and free recording time, the Road to Nightfall winner will headline an evening of the Nightfall concert series, which runs Fridays from May 8 to Aug. 26.
The preliminary rounds, which begin Friday, March 11, have been moved from their longtime home at Rhythm & Brews, which closed last fall, to the Granfalloon on Main Street. The final round, slated for March 26, also has been relocated from The Camp House to Revelry Room on the Chattanooga Choo Choo campus.
Other than the new venues, the improvements and expansions that were made to the event last year, including a fifth preliminary round, vote-by-text system and buttressed prize package, will carry over this year, Susman says.
“Really, as far as that stuff is concerned, it’s all staying the same,” he says. “There were 20,000 total votes last year for bands. It was wildly successful in getting the bands’ names out there.”
Susman now oversees Road to Nightfall on Chattanooga Presents’ behalf through his new company, Gig City Productions. He has long downplayed the competitive aspects of the event, preferring to tout its tendency to help bands forge new partnerships and build a wider, more diverse fan base.
Early on, he was unsure sure how well the event would translate from a music mecca like Nashville to Chattanooga’s smaller pool of artists, but he says he quickly discovered it suited the Scenic City to a T.
“After that first year, I realized more and more the talent that we have here,” Susman says. “That’s what led me to do three years of work to create the Music Resource Center, which is Sound Corps, to do the economic impact study we did of music – to really bring music to the forefront of conversation. It showed me the talent we have here and gave me the ability to have those conversations.”
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.