Band Together's 2014 Main Event

On May 3 Band Together will hold it's annual Main Event.  This year's headliners will be Hall and Oates and the concert will benefit Communities in Schools of Durham and Wake County.  The event will be held at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre and doors will open at 6 pm.  Get your tickets here before they sell out!

Band Together was started in response to September 11, 2001.  After the towers fell the founders, Danny Rosin, Phil Gruber, Shellie Gruber, Tom Lyon and Skip Mangum made the decision to take action and become the change they wanted to see in the world.  Every year since, they have put together a Main Event with a well-known headlining artist. We discussed the upcoming event and the organization with Brand Together's Executive Director, Matt Strickland.

September 11, 2001 sparked a national feeling that something needed to be done.  The aforementioned founders of Band Together choose a different approach to funding local causes than many organizations that were started as a result of the tragic events. Matt explained that "they got together and they knew they wanted to do something, and they thought about doing normal event-based fundraising ideas like golf tournaments, wine tastings, etc., but they were all young at the time and  they all loved music so they decided to give it a try and use music as their platform for social change."

Prior to Matt's hiring in 2011, the organization had been mainly volunteer based and driven, and they brought on an executive director to take the organization to "even dizzier heights". Having an executive director has helped the organization to grow and prosper.  When asked about his role, Matt added "We keep growing the brand within the community.  The money raised has jumped from $556,000 to last year $862,000 and this year we are trying to hit $1,000,000.  We are also trying to make the organization as a whole better."

The community has been welcoming of Band Together since their initial event over twelve years ago.  "They planned their first event in six weeks and were able to raise $60,000 from the thousands of people who attended.  To make money on a concert and have that many people show up is pretty fantastic."

What does the future hold for the organization? Matt says "We are trying to figure out how we want to expand in the future whether it be expanding to larger music event in which multiple bands or events happen over a weekend, or package a band machine up and franchise it to other communities. In the next couple of years, we are content to focusing on growing our monetary contributions in support of the local community and we'll see what happens.  The Board of Directors is definitely entertaining some of those larger ideas to figure out what our next steps are going to be in the next five to ten years."

Band Together is a fantastic organization and they are always looking for volunteers for their events! If you can't volunteer you can support the cause by attending their Main Event featuring Hall & Oates on May 3!

Follow Band Together on Twitter to stay up to date on all of their events!