Ten years ago, downtown Nashville was a graveyard for free, live music festivals.

Free concert series Dancin in the District, Uptown Mix and Summer Lights had come, achieved varying degrees of success and departed by early 2009, when then-Mayor Karl Dean nonchalantly told Lightning 100's Laurel Creech that it would be nice to walk out of his courthouse office, have a beer and watch free live music at the city's picturesque new Public Square Park.

Dean's wishful remark morphed into a mission for executives at Lightning 100, the popular independent radio station. Mere months later, Live on the Green was up and running, filling the void for a free concert series downtown.

"All the credit goes to their team for running with the idea and making it the huge success it is today," Dean said. "I loved sitting in my office in the courthouse on a Thursday afternoon in the fall and hearing that night's acts rehearse. It made meetings difficult at times, but it was well worth it."

With its 10th season recently completed, Live on the Green has grown from a niche neighborhood concert series into a music industry force, which draws thousands of fans, pumps millions of dollars into the downtown economy and alters album release strategies for record labels.

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“It’s a special thing,” said Chris Cobb, who was hired to handle booking and producing the festival in 2009 and has stayed in a leadership role ever since. “There’s a lot of quote-unquote ‘radio shows’ all over the country. But to have current artists, big names, playing free shows week after week in such a gorgeous setting in front of the courthouse, it’s unique.

“I think the site is a larger testament to the success too. But, for Sheryl Crow, or Ben Harper, or Cage the Elephant to be out there for free. It just doesn’t happen a lot of places. We’re very fortunate to have Live on the Green and we’re very fortunate to have Lightning 100. If they weren’t independent and didn’t have the great team they have, then this city wouldn’t have such an important event year after year.”

Concert series had humble beginnings

Live on the Green didn't exactly storm out of the gate. The event was initially pitched as an opportunity to pair up-and-coming Nashville artists with bands that have built a national following.

In 2009, Live on the Green was successful at unveiling local bands, but it only drew an average of 1,500 fans for the weekly concerts.

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For the executives at Lightning 100, a scrappy radio station with a small staff, putting on the festival meant substantial extra work. They had their day jobs running the radio station and the work that went into running Live on the Green was added on.

Lester Turner, the festival's founder and president of Tuned In Broadcasting, said partnering with contractors to handle much of the festival's operations and then hiring a full-time executive, former Live on the Green intern Chris Paxton, to work exclusively on the concert series was a turning point.

"It just wasn't sustainable," Turner said. "We were going to kill ourselves just to put it on."

Live on the Green did not turn a profit in the early years, but the executives running the festival learned valuable lessons. They began overlapping the radio station's programming with the bands they booked at Live on the Green.

Led by VP of Sales Tom Hansen, organizers cultivated vital partnerships. And, most importantly, the team just got better at putting on a free concert series. They took their lumps, but logistics, festival layout, booking strategy and security all improved.

Attendance steadily grew, and then in 2012 Live on the Green had a touchstone moment when Alabama Shakes, a band the station had supported very early on, was a meteoric rise and booked to perform in the fall of that year.

A festival that had averaged about 7,000 fans told Nashville police leadership that the crowd would possibly grow dramatically for the Alabama Shakes show. The prediction was right, attendance doubled, and Live on the Green turned a corner.

"What we did the first three years - the basic look, fit and feel of Live on the Green - is still there," Hansen said. "It's just now it's massive."

Festival generates economic impact, dovetails with record labels' strategies

With an estimated $3 million in annual economic impact and an average of approximately 15,000 fans at its six concerts, "massive" is probably a fair description of Live on the Green.

In 2017, indie rock veterans Spoon set the attendance record with what one source estimated was over 20,000 fans. Last year when Sheryl Crow's Labor Day weekend show was rained out, she volunteered to play a few days later. Turner said it was especially flattering to have an artist as accomplished as Crow want to go forward and play instead of canceling.

And Crow isn't alone. The broader music industry has taken note of the success of both Live on the Green and Lightning 100.

Julie Muncy, vice president of radio promotion for Warner Brothers Records, said Live on the Green has developed "an incredible reputation for being an event that can really help make a connection between the artists and audience."

Muncy said she has worked with Lightning 100 to build timelines for album releases, single releases and tour date announcements. Muncy pointed to ascending singer-songwriter Andra Day, whose debut single "Rise Up" was played regularly on Lightning 100 before she subsequently performed at Live on the Green in front of thousands of fans.

"She played to 13,000 people that night! She now has a solid fanbase and can come back any time to build on this," Muncy said in an interview conducted over email.

Turner emphasized that while in recent years, Live on the Green has turned a profit, the event remains in the red dating back to its early years when it operated at a deficit. But, Turner said Live on the Green isn't considered a standalone event for Lightning 100.

The goal is to draw in more radio listeners and then parlay that into advertising revenue.

"It's a form of advertising," Turner said. "It's marketing for the radio station. The hardest thing for a radio station to do is find a new listener. Other people come to you to get more customers, so you know all about how to do that. But how do you get more eyes and ears on your product?"

In addition to Live on the Green, the station, which is one of the weaker FM stations in terms of signal strength in Nashville, shifted its programming focus several years ago to include more local bands. Whereas local artists were only getting spun about 12 times per week previously, station management wanted 30 to 40 percent local artists in the rotation.

The strategy worked, and Lightning 100's reputation within the radio industry is sterling, as illustrated by an array of awards the station has won in 2018. At the Friday Morning Quarterback Awards Triple A Conference last month, Lighting 100 won station of the year, music director of the year and program director of the year.

Would Live on the Green ever move locations?

To the extent Live on the Green has ever received criticism, it's been because business was almost too good at times. Especially crowded shows in 2012 generated impossibly long beer and concessions lines. But, Paxton, the festival director, has helped iron out those issues and the flow of Live on the Green, which has expanded its overall footprint up Deadrick Street and 3rd Avenue in recent years, is as smooth as ever.

Still, with crowds reaching 20,000 people, it's reasonable to ask if the event has grown too big for Public Square Park, or if Live on the Green is so popular that it should become a ticketed event.

Festival organizers say Live On the Green is where it's supposed to be. Dating back to Dean, the city's support has been crucial to its success.

Other than permit costs, the festival doesn't pay to rent Metro facilities, and police provide officers for security at no additional charge.

"It is a truly unique location," Turner said. "It is where it belongs. It truly wouldn't be Live on the Green if it wasn't at Public Square."

Reach Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 and nrau@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter @tnnaterau.