New organization aims to promote Springfield to touring musicians

Andy Peebles is co-founder of The Ozarks Music Alliance.

A local couple was tired of their favorite musicians skipping Springfield on tours, so they created an organization to promote the city to the music industry.

The Ozarks Music Alliance, announced Aug. 7 on Facebook, was co-founded by Andy and Courtney Peebles. Andy is a shareholder and attorney with Carnahan Evans PC, and Courtney is a social media specialist and per-course faculty member at the Missouri State University Marketing Department. 

"Our goal is to obviously enhance the live music scene in Springfield by attracting artists from across the country to play shows here that might not have otherwise considered Springfield as a destination on their tours," Andy Peebles said. "I think it's just kind of the same thing that plagued Springfield with a lot of things. We blend in with the other Springfields."

Peebles said he and his wife contributed a "few thousand dollars" to launch a TOMA fund called a fiscal sponsorship through Community Foundation of the Ozarks Inc. He said donations to TOMA through the fund are tax-deductible and would go directly toward paying musicians.

TOMA is starting off small, Peebles said, and would grow as demand dictates.

"This is a pretty grassroots idea," he said. "This is largely a passion project."

Peebles said he's been in contact with bands – with the first concert announcement expected in the next couple weeks – and that TOMA would pay to bring them to Springfield. Ticket sales, after expenses, would go back into the fund at CFO, he said.

While pointing to folk and Americana as potential genres, Peebles said TOMA intends to work with myriad venues, including breweries, in Springfield to showcase up-and-coming and mid-level artists.

"I've got a large list of artists I think are of the size and the type of genre that I think would play well in Springfield. We're not limiting ourselves to a certain genre," Peebles said, noting TOMA would initially focus on shows at venues with a 200-person capacity.

Peebles said he believes TOMA would supplement the music promotion work that's already occurring in Springfield.

Johan Collins is a concert promoter who said he’s been booking music acts in Springfield for 24 years. He said his brand Springood is currently partnering with Gary Thomas of Regency Live to put on music shows under the Midwest Live banner. Springfield Business Journal asked him about how TOMA might affect Springfield’s current concert-booking market.

Collins said it was hard for him to form an opinion yet, since TOMA is such a new operation.

“It's just another promoter that's coming to Springfield, Missouri,” he said. “I wish them the best of luck. Hopefully they can do some cool things in Springfield, which is super cool. … I'm always about, you know, more people doing what we do, because it's really hard. It really is.”

Collins added, “More power to them. Good luck. I think Springfield needs more live entertainment, for sure.”

Additional reporting by Deputy Editor Gregory Holman