benefit concert

As North Carolina natives Luke Combs and Eric Church organized the Concert for Carolina benefit held Oct. 26 in Charlotte, the only question anyone asked was “How can I help?”

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“All egos went out the door,” said Chris Kappy, Combs’ manager. “It was just everybody working together, AEG and Live Nation, all the managers, all the teams. It never got territorial.

The six-hour concert, which also featured James Taylor, Keith Urban, Sheryl Crow, Billy Strings, Scotty McCreery, Avett Bros., Chase Rice,  Parmalee and Wesko, has raised $24.5 million (and counting) for western North Carolina victims of Hurricane Helene.

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While many benefits take several weeks, if not months, to plan, Concert for Carolina was held less than a month after the worst natural disaster to ever hit North Carolina ravished mountain towns, including Asheville and Boone, and left close to 100 people dead.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said at an Oct. 26 press conference that more than 100,000 people in the state had damage to their homes and thousands of businesses had been affected. The estimated financial damages of the storm to North Carolina are $53 billion.

The day after Hurricane Helene hit on Sept. 27, Combs called Church about organizing a benefit and they immediately started calling their artist friends. “I remember sitting at home in Nashville and wanting to figure out how I can be of service, how I can help the place that raised me,” said Combs. “There was no question that this was going to happen come hell or high water.”

David Bergman

The next step was for Kappy to call David and Nicole Tepper, who own the Carolina Panthers, FC Charlotte and Bank of America stadium, where the NFL and soccer teams play in Charlotte, to see if they could use the stadium. “The yes was so fast,” Kappy said. “David and Nicole said, ‘We’ve got the stadium. We’ve got everything covered.’ David and Nicole would have moved heaven and earth to make it happen for us.”

The Teppers were already looped into hurricane relief via their work with the American Red Cross and had started giving what has now become close to $6 million toward relief efforts for both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida just days after Helene passed through. “When [Kappy] called us, it was like, ‘Okay, what do we have to do to do it and it’s three weeks,’” David Tepper told Billboard. “It’s hard from [Combs’ and Church’s] end to get the artists, but on this end, we had to make sure we didn’t get scheduled with [a soccer playoff game.]” Luckily, the Panthers were playing away from home and FC Charlotte could also play away from home. Also fortuitously, Morgan Wallen played two shows at the stadium the weekend before the Concert for Carolina and production could just keep the field covering down.

Ultimately, with Tepper’s encouragement, the stadium’s concession, merchandise and parking vendors all donated their proceeds as well. All the other participating companies, including those providing sound, stage, lighting and video, also donated their resources. Ticketmaster also donated its services and put plans in place to keep tickets out of the secondary market. The show sold out quickly, setting a new venue record of more than 82,000 attendees.  Veeps donated all proceeds from a $24.95 streaming option. The acts all paid their own expenses and were not paid to play.

While Combs’ and Church’s teams dealt with the show aspects, Tepper was dealing with logistics. “There’s contracts, there’s the police, there’s who’s holding the money and where’s the money going and making sure it’s flowing the right way,” he said. “Usually there are long negotiations, but everybody was trying to make sure everything was done right. It was a lot of people putting everything aside just to get this done.” Tepper had some experience, having helped organize New York’s 12-12-12 benefit in 2012 following Hurricane Sandy, which hit the east coast in late October 2012.

Even rivals AEG and Live Nation joined together to co-promote the show. “We really looked at it and said, ‘We just need the smartest minds in the room’ and this was an opportunity for everybody,” Kappy said. “You can show everybody that you can put down your swords and you can all put your arms around each other and lift each other up to lift everybody else up.”

The goodwill was infectious. “Everybody wanted to be part of something special and saw what we were doing. They said, ‘We want to be part of that,’” Kappy said. Kappy and Church’s manager, John Peets, worked in “lockstep,” on the benefit, staying in constant communication. “It’s been awesome to go back and forth with him on this and for him to be like, ‘Whatever Kappy says,’ and for me to be like ‘Whatever John says.’ Same with our two agents at WME and our production managers working hand in hand.”

“Everybody in the city, at the stadium, on the artist side…quite frankly, all  their better angels were working together to put this together in three weeks,” Tepper said.

All proceeds from the benefit show, auction and livestream are going to organizations selected by Combs and Church, including Samaritan’s Purse, Manna Food Bank, Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC, Eblen Charities and the organizations supported by Church’s foundation, Chief Cares. At the show, Church also stated his intention to build more than 100 houses for those who lost their homes in the hurricane.

The focus now shifts to how to keep awareness on the area and the ongoing need as the recovery will take years. “The biggest thing for Luke and I is we continue to shine a light on this,” Church said. “This concert’s a great way to do it, but these people are going to need help long after tonight and long after next month and long after six months. So, it’s about, how can we continue to put this up front to make people be aware of what happened there,  and we help the people.”