MACON, Ga. — Macon's newest music venue is just a couple weeks out from opening day.
Businesses around Eisenhower Parkway are getting ready, and Atrium Health Amphitheater staff is getting ready too.
Tuesday, they got to see what a concert day will look like with a test concert, and a few thousand Maconites piled in to see Macon music's new hub.
"We have a great lineup of shows for you tonight," Mayor Lester Miller said at the beginning of the night.
Concertgoers celebrated the end of construction as local bands played short sets. They got to see the vision in action.
"I wouldn't even expect it to be as beautiful, or look the way it looks from the outside looking in. So when we walked through the door, I was like, 'It doesn't even feel like we're in Macon anymore,'" Atrium nurse Lattasha Payne said.
Two years ago, county leaders rolled up to the groundbreaking in a tour bus.
"I'll tell you, we are back," Miller told a small crowd.
Work started a couple months later as the venue took shape. Sanaya Causey works nearby and watched it all happen.
"I really was like, 'They really are building something cool in Macon,'" she said.
Like many people there Tuesday, she plans to be back really soon.
"Anthony Hamilton. Got tickets for that," she said.
Visit Macon estimates the venue will generate $2 million to $3 million per sold-out show. Macon-Bibb County hopes this is another step toward revitalizing Eisenhower Parkway.
In April 2022, the county estimated all the work to build the amphitheater and update the Macon Mall would cost around $43 million. Macon-Bibb's Urban Development Authority issued bonds to pay for it up-front, like a loan.
The county plans to pay it all back with rental income from the mall and revenue from the Amphitheater. It's estimated to take around 30 years.