After a successful inaugural season last year, the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra has finished out another successful season of Symphony on Tap. The series ended the 2022 season with a final event on June 24 at the Hugger Mugger Brewing Company.

“We started Symphony on Tap last year with the goal to get out in the community and engage with people in a more casual way in places they know and more comfortable for them,” stated Anna Meyer, the Community Engagement Manager for the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra.

“We’re trying to build our audiences and gather new interest in the Symphony. We can’t expect people to come to us and our traditional concerts.”
As the idea was formed around getting the Orchestra’s name out there and grabbing the attention of the community, the question remained: Where would these events be held? With several brewers in and surrounding the Fayetteville region and the love for craft beer, it all just made sense.
“Thus far, the patrons really enjoyed it and the breweries we’ve gotten great feedback from with everyone just enjoying having the music there and people that it brings in,” added Meyer.
In the beginning, to get venues there was a lot of outreach to the breweries and restaurants to see who had expressed interest. Since then they have been able to add different locations to their list of appearances.
There have even been several locations that have requested to be included as a location choice. The series is hoping to expand more next season with an event to be held at James Creek Cider House in Cameron.

So far, the Symphony on Tap series has been hosted at Gaston Brewing Company - the restaurant and tap room, Dirtbag Ales and Dirty Whiskey, Heckler, District House of Taps, and Bright Light Brewing Company.
When an event is scheduled, typically the Orchestra sends small ensembles to perform. These ensembles could be a duo, trio, quartet or quintet and range from jazz, violin, brass, and piano.
Even though the musicians are playing at breweries, the performances are completely different than what one would expect.
“These performances are pretty different with the structure and atmosphere of where the musicians are playing. Our traditional concerts we do at either local churches, Methodist University, or the big concert hall,” Meyer said. “The environment at these breweries are much more casual than our larger concerts.”
Typically, normal concerts for the Orchestra feature around 60 musicians and traditional symphony programming, whereas, for the series the musicians play pop covers or jazz music.
With different music and locations comes with a different type of crowd, with attendance varying depending on the venue.
Certain venues draw bigger crowds.

“Heckler has a pretty big following in terms of loyal support and has patrons that don’t normally come to the concert hall,” Meyer stated. “There is definitely a different crossover, I see people that I recognize from concerts but I have also seen younger people and even families coming out more to the tap events.”

As the events are open to the public, if patrons visit a venue that the Symphony is at, it then is a great way to reach new people.
Anyone is welcome to attend the events and have no cost of entrance.
However, food and drinks are not included and must be purchased separately through the establishment the event is happening at.
For those that have never been to a Symphony on Tap event, the layout for the night usually goes as follows. The musicians will get there about a half hour before to set up, a table of information is set up and then for 90 minutes music is played before wrapping up for the evening.
With the 2021-2022 season now at an end, patrons that are looking to attend one of the events can attend the first event of the 2022-2023 season in August at Gaston Brewing in their tap room.
“Our season typically runs from September through may and take a break during the summer for our concerts, but now we’ve expanded. This year we ran from August to June and are taking July off and that will be happening again this upcoming season,” added Meyer. 

The Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra also has great sponsorship opportunities for next season’s Symphony on Tap events. Anyone who is interested in sponsoring will become like a co-host of the event and will have their logo and business associated with that particular event.

“We really want to see people at these events, they are a lot of fun and super low-key and casual. So if you want to stop by for thirty minutes and hear a couple of tunes, have a beer and go home then that’s great.”
Events like these are important to have in the community to bring music to different spaces and bring people together to make connections with one another.
“It’s an important way for us to engage with our community and hopefully bring people together through music and beer.”

For more information about the upcoming season visit the Symphony on Tap’s website.