New music venues open in area.

Venues, old and new, provide stages for local favorites and world renown musicians to perform live in Northwest Arkansas.

The Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion in Rogers remains a consistent presenter of industry performers across genres. The outdoor venue is the region’s largest, and one of the country’s top-selling amphitheaters according to Pollstar. Its upcoming 13th season will offer some of the biggest names in pop and country.

Pop icon Kesha teams up with rap superstar Macklemore on June 25. Niall Horan, the third former member of British group One Direction to release a solo album, will make his first visit to the AMP. The a cappella group Pentatonix takes the stage in July. Country superstars Chris Stapleton and Kenny Chesney make return stops, and Keith Urban makes his AMP debut.

The granddaddy of Northwest Arkansas music venues, George’s Majestic Lounge on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, continues to host touring and local favorites on two stages. Dweezil Zappa, Dr. Dog and Railroad Earth will be stopping by this spring. George’s turned 90 last year and is one of the oldest and longest running live music venues in the state. It has been voted one of the best college town bars in the USA, and Consequence of Sound ranked it No. 87 in its list of the 100 greatest music venues in the country.

The heavy-hitters aren’t the only ones thriving. Several venues opened in 2017 and had sold-out shows and a showcase of national acts. Fayetteville gained a new outdoor venue in the form of JJ’s Beer Garden and Brewing Co. on North Steele Boulevard, where some 1,200 concertgoers can hear live music, sit on the patio, and play sand volleyball and lawn games. As with the restaurant’s other locations in Northwest Arkansas and across the state, JJ’s hosts local acts to boost the native music scene. But headliners during the inaugural free summer concert series included national and regional names such as Kelly Pickler, Drake White, Casey Donahew and Aaron Watson.

Fayetteville has enjoyed restaurants offering live, outdoor music for some time — Powerhouse Seafood & Grill in downtown was one of the first. The growing national trend now has taken hold with the rest of the region.

“One of the things that has helped in our success is that there aren’t many

[patio] options in Bentonville. We wanted to offer that to people,” Kevin

Bennoch, owner of the

Pedaler’s Pub, said last year.

“There’s this trend going because of the style of life up here,” Bennoch said. “It’s part of the celebration when it’s the weekend and you’re off work. You get to be outside and maximize your weekend because you’re getting entertainment, and everybody can get out and enjoy it.”

The Sunrise Guitars

Shop at the former Subaru and Honda dealership on College Avenue in

Fayetteville offers a more intimate setting with the new 100-seat Sunrise

Stage. Owner Don Nelms worked with sound engineers to build the room’s custom acoustics. He also conferred with influential people in the Northwest

Arkansas music scene to create a music series that connects the audience and performers.

“This is the first room in Fayetteville that’s built purely as a showcase venue, the first and foremost focus being on good sound,” Darren Novotny with Springdale Acoustics, one of the engineers on the project, said last year. “As a result, we’ve done a couple things on stage that you don’t see many places.”

Modeled after the successful Artist, Audience & Community Live! series in Fort Smith, Sunrise hosted a season full of nationally touring folk, Americana, singer/songwriter and acoustic artists.

Also in Fort Smith, part of an empty building was renovated into a music venue last year. The 53,000-squarefoot Masonic Temple Building, built downtown in 1928, features a newly restored auditorium that can seat nearly 1,200 people.

Temple Live, as it is now called, opened in late summer and hosted country music stars Joe Nichols, The Charlie Daniels Band, Dwight Yokam and Willie Nelson. Comedian Ron White returns to the region with his first show at the Temple in May.

Newer festivals and organizations that bring important figures to the area and connect them with local writers and creators are contributing to Northwest Arkansas’ musical identity.

Troy Campbell, founder of the Austin-based House of Songs, partnered with Bryan and Bernice Hembree of local duo Smokey and the Mirror to extend the organization and set up a year-round artist residency program in Bentonville.

“There’s an air of artists coming to the area to create, not just be exhibited,” Campbell said of the House of Songs Ozarks.

The setup brings international artists to town to meet and collaborate with local artists, with dozens of songs already written.

“It’s a way to get the public to understand, and also get the local songwriters to understand, we’re not here to take; we’re here to learn,” Campbell said.

That tradition of songwriting in the area is further reflected and celebrated in the Power of Music Festival.

The songwriter festival and music conference was established by the I’ll Fly Away Foundation as a way to connect Northwest Arkansas writers, venues, teachers and music supporters with the tools they need.

Music executives from Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Nashville, Toronto and Stockholm, and songwriters from around the world converged on Bentonville and will do so again — including five Hall of Fame songwriters — when the festival returns for its second year in April.