Kirby Hutto has been involved with the Ting Pavilion since ground was broken for the downtown venue in 2004. Together with his crew, he’s hosted James Brown, Loretta Lynn, Bruce Springsteen, former President Barack Obama, and the Dalai Lama, to name just a few. Now, the Pavilion’s general manager is passing the torch and stepping into the crowd.
“I’m 65. I’ve got a Medicare card, man,” says Hutto. “It’s time to start enjoying everything that I’ve worked so hard for.”
Hutto’s career was born out of a love for live music. He traces the spark to 1976, when he was a first-year at the University of Virginia. “Back in the day, when the drinking age was 18,” he says, “you would go to have dinner at Observatory Hill Dining Hall and there would be kegs and a band playing outside on the Lawn.”
But his first shot at managing live shows didn’t come until 1992, when he went to work for Fridays After Five, Charlottesville’s longrunning concert series. There, he transitioned the Fridays shows from booking corporate bands—“You know, wedding bands that would come into town. They had no local following.”—to tapping into outstanding local talent such as Charlie Pastorfield and The Believers, Wolves of Azure, TR3, The Casuals, bands that were “big in their time.” He remembers how, in 1995, The Subdudes accidentally drove to Charlotte, North Carolina, on the day of the concert while it was pouring rain in Charlottesville.
At FAF, Hutto learned to make sure the show went on no matter what chaos was unfolding backstage. That lesson has served him well in his GM role at the Pavilion.
“You’re really, really fighting the good fight to make things happen,” he says. “And ideally, from the patron’s point of view, all they know is they came to a great show.”
In 1996, Hutto left Fridays After Five for more steady work in the corporate world. But soon, he caught wind that Coran Capshaw was looking to build an amphitheater on the Downtown Mall. Hutto contacted a good friend who worked for Capshaw, and asked to pass along a message, almost as a joke: “If you need somebody to run that amphitheater, tell him to give me a call.”
Months later, he got that call. “Next thing you know, I’m having dinner with Coran,” says Hutto.
At the Pavilion, Hutto has dealt with every manner of touring artist, from the well-worn veterans of the road to the discombobulated traveling acts that haven’t heard of an input list before. But regardless of a performer’s crew size or experience, he and his staff—many of whom have been with Hutto for five to 15 years—have worked tirelessly to ensure visiting musicians have a memorable time in Charlottesville.
“I know from talking with other venues, artist hospitality can be an afterthought,” says Hutto, who credits Allie Leffler, the Pavilion’s artist hospitality manager, for the effusive praise performers have for the venue. “And that’s how you, A, make an artist want to come back, but, B, it’s also how you sort of compensate for some of the challenges that we know our venue presents.”
The urban nature of the Pavilion’s downtown location means that space to unload gear is limited—and therefore that process takes much longer—but artists also have quick access to the amenities of the mall and surrounding attractions. David Byrne brought his mountain bike to town, and Pavilion staff pointed him to the Rivanna Trail. Neko Case went on a shopping spree.
“A lot of artists will take their day off here,” says Hutto.
That pride in the Pavilion’s situation in the center of Charlottesville extends to the non-musical events Hutto and his team book, from high school graduations to the Eid prayer for the city’s Muslim community. He stresses that the Pavilion is city-owned—“It’s a public-private partnership”—and that the way the venue represents, promotes, and supports the community is the legacy he hopes to leave behind.
“We’ve created this special little place … there’s not a whole lot of them exactly like us around the country,” says Hutto. “We find that balance between the ticketed shows with the big names, the Fridays After Five with the local names, and then all of the community activities. And between those three buckets, we stay damn busy.”
Though Hutto is stepping from part-time involvement into retirement in May, he’ll remain a resource for his successor through the end of the year. The new GM, Jonathan Drolshagen, has managed venues such as The Southern and The Jefferson Theater, and he shadowed Hutto last year.
“I hope he’s gonna be able to thrive in it,” says Hutto.