Tuesday afternoon, Music & Event Management Incorporated welcomed guests, donors and media to a first look at the Farmer Music Center—an all-new amphitheater with 20,000 seats intended as a successor to the Riverbend Music Center.
During the event, attendees were shown a newly released fly-through video, offering an early glimpse at the venue’s design, feel and overall concert experience. Roughly 8,000 of the seats in the venue will be covered, with the remaining 12,000 seats offering a ‘general admission’ experience in front of the stage on a synthetic lawn. The new venue is on the former site of the Coney Island amusement park, directly next to Riverbend.
MEMI declared the main dome structure will be completed by year end, and the targeted opening date for the Farmer Music Center is May 14, 2027. Mike Smith, MEMI’s CEO, shared some of his favorite memories and artists to play at Riverbend during a press conference—like the Grateful Dead, Frank Sinatra and Taylor Swift—as a way to “celebrate our shared past and look excitedly towards the future.”
“There’s still a great deal of work for us to do ahead … but what you’re seeing today is an important milestone,” Smith said. “For the first time, our community and fans can truly imagine what this venue will look and feel like, and what it will mean for Cincinnati, Anderson Township and the entire region.”
Smith told CityBeat that the Farmer Music Center will “clearly” be one of the best venues in the country when it opens, and that “if fans are happy, bands are happy.”
“The opportunity to create a bigger payday, frankly, for an artist will cause more of them to consider coming to Cincinnati … economic impact is going to be significant, with five or six hundred thousand people coming through here in the summertime. Which means local businesses, restaurants, hotels will be significantly impacted,” Smith said.
Recently, Mayor Aftab Pureval slashed the amount of money that MEMI—a subsidiary of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra —would receive for construction from the city. City Council voted 5-4 to grant $8 million to the venue, but Pureval decreased the grant to $2 million in the city’s latest budget, a move that surprised many. Smith, however, was nonetheless optimistic about the grant.
“We’re appreciative of the investment. I mean, you always are appreciative of people who have skin in the game or who support your vision, and this is a significant vision for the city. We’re pleased,” Smith said.
In a special announcement during the conference from CSO President and CEO Robert McGrath, the company unveiled a special water feature dedicated to the legacy of Marian and Donald Spencer to be placed just outside the new venue on Central Avenue. Marian Spencer was the first Black woman elected to Cincinnati City Council and later served as Vice Mayor, while Donald Spencer was the first Black broker on the Cincinnati Board of Realtors and first Black member of the Cincinnati Park Board.
“It is important to us that the Farmer Music Center reflects the history connected to it and the people whose leadership and courage helped shape this community,” McGrath said. “Like many generations of Cincinnatians, we have been deeply inspired by the legacy of Marian and Donald Spencer and their commitment to advancing civil rights, educational equity, and community development in our community.”
To Smith, the most exciting part of building the new amphitheater is how many Cincinnatians won’t have to leave the Queen City to see great music.
“I think it gives them an opportunity, if our assumptions are correct, that more bands will want to play here … to see some of their favorite bands and not maybe have to go to Chicago or Detroit or externally,” Smith told CityBeat. “The experience of a night out here will be supremely better than what they’ve experienced in the past.”
