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The city of Helena was electric as the free Old Town Live concert was held on Saturday, April 15. (For the Reporter/Jeremy Raines)

By LIZZIE BOWEN | Staff Writer

HELENA – The city of Helena was electric on Saturday, April 15 with the return of the city’s Old Town Live with a big lineup of music acts.

The event was hosted by the city of Helena and put on by the HOTBoard through months of hard work. It was the first of several coming up throughout the summer, and Helena Mayor Brian Puckett was thankful for the board’s hard work and all that went into putting together the season’s opening event.

“It’s a group of volunteers that put this on for the city,” Puckett said. “For months leading up to this, they work to make sure that one night is successful.”

Puckett said he was amazed by how well the night went and said the turnout for the event was great.

“It was an amazing night,” Puckett said. “For the city to be able to put on a show like this, not only for our community, but for all the people who came into town to see the show.”

Entertainment was provided to the crowd by country pop artist Lindsay Ell, band 49 Winchester 49 and Birmingham-based singer songwriter Drayton Farley.

There were many out of town guests present at the concert and even people who had traveled out of state to enjoy the concert.

Puckett asked the crowd present to clap if they were not from Alabama and was met with a round of applause from many in attendance of the concert.

Puckett said the estimated recorded attendance was 3,000-3,5000 present for Old Town Live.

“It was great,” Puckett said. “That is typically what we like to see for concert and events. We were excited and very pleased with the turnout.”

Puckett was surprised and pleased to see so many who had traveled across the country and state to be a part of this special event.

“From the metro area, we pull a good crowd,” Puckett said. “But to see so many people coming from different states just for this is telling us that we’re doing something right.”

The artist enjoyed playing to the receptive crowd as many had their lawn chairs camped out in advance to get a good view of the entertainment.

“The artists thought the crowd was great,” Puckett said.

Puckett spoke about why events like Old Town Live are important to the community of Helena and what he hopes to gain from events like this.

“We want everybody to come,” Puckett said. “We are always going to be mixing up each concert with different genres of music knowing that we will be hitting different demographics each and every concert. What we want to do is draw as many people to Helena as possible, so that they can dine in our restaurants, they can shop in our stores here and they can enjoy Helena like all the rest of us do.”

The concert offered a diverse showing with people of all ages showing up to enjoy the performances.

“We always try to make everything family focused,” Puckett said. “We want parents to bring their kids out whether they are 10 years old or 18 years old. We also want to cater to our residents who are older in age and give them things that they can enjoy as well. We want the shows to be where everyone can come and make sure everyone has a good time.”

Puckett said his favorite part of the event what seeing everyone in the park enjoying what Helena has to offer.

The city of Helena extends its thanks again to the Helena HOTBoard for all the work that is put into Old Town Live.

More information on Old Town Live can be found at the official Facebook page at Facebook.com/CityofHelenaAlabama.

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