At its height in the early-2000s, the Big Spring Jam music festival drew more than 200,000 people to downtown Huntsville. The streets would be thick with people. Music fans. Families. Revelers.

"Shake It Off" singer Taylor Swift, the biggest star going in 2016, performed at Big Spring Jam early in her career. As did Foo Fighters, the Dave Grohl-led rockers who do stadiums now. Beyonce played Big Spring Jam as part of Destiny's Child, the hit-making R&B group in which she got her start before becoming a supernova solo artist. Wilco, possibly the most critically acclaimed American band to emerge in the last 20 years, played the festival. The Zac Brown Band appeared at the Jam. As did Southern rock legends The Allman Brothers. Al Green. Willie Nelson. Buddy Guy. Joan Jett. Hall & Oates. Dr. John. Allison Krauss and Union Station. George Clinton. Keith Urban. Cheap Trick. Dixie Chicks. And on and on.

Taylor Swift performs at the Big Spring Jam 2007. (File photo)

"We had a lot of great acts that probably would have never played Huntsville other than having that venue to showcase them," promoter and Big Spring Jam co-founder Donn Jennings said. Jennings booked every act that ever played the festival. "Huntsville bought into the Big Spring Jam from the first day. It obviously grew over the next 18 years but it became a real signature event for not only Huntsville but North Alabama. It was very high profile." (Sure, Big Spring Jam also hosted a few less boast-worthy bookings. But to be fair, music festivals held during that era in other mid-sized cities, like Birmingham's City Stages, did too.)

Longtime Huntsville resident Lindsey Rogers, now the manager at local bar Voodoo Lounge, remembers Big Spring Jam as "just a family affair for families that liked music." Rogers' family would book a downtown hotel room each year during the Jam. "I remember my mom took me to see the Allman Brothers," she said fondly.

A typical Jam lineup was comprised of 100 to 120 acts over five or six stages. The festival debuted in 1993 and was held each fall over a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Big Spring Jam became something people living in North Alabama looked forward to each year.

Until it wasn't.

In 2010, Big Spring Jam was cancelled because of Von Braun Center expansion and construction of the Huntsville Museum of Art, both sites that previously hosted Jam stages. Another Big Spring Jam stage was located where the Embassy Suites hotel is now.

"We were constantly moving the event around to accommodate the growth that downtown Huntsville was experiencing," Jennings, now in his early-60s, said. Festival organizers floated the idea of moving the Jam to John Hunt Park, which was met by a chorus of "You've got to be kidding?" Jennings said, over concerns the festival would lose its flavor if it left downtown. Jennings, a life-long Huntsville resident, was all for and understood the city's downtown growth: "Huntsville didn't need to be about saving a footprint for the Jam. Huntsville needed to be about progressing and going forward." Still, the lack of an adequate site would impact future bookings. "We couldn't bring in a Destiny's Child anymore because we had no place to accommodate that crowd," Jennings said.

A crowd at Big Spring Jam. (File photo)

Big Spring Jam reemerged in 2011 in a two-day configuration, but attendance sunk to around 30,000. Some fans griped the lineup wasn't what it once was and that attending cost more than it used to. At the time, festival organizers, which included VBC leadership, blamed the falloff on a struggling economy, bad weather Friday, and University of Alabama and Auburn University home football games. (Remember, this was the middle of a four-year run in which the national championship crown didn't leave the state.) Curiously, high-school football games were also cited as a believed factor for the diminished attendance. Big Spring Jam 2011 was also the year some country-music sets were scheduled for inside Propst Arena, a decision which Jennings was not in favor of. "When you started putting half of it inside the building and half of it out, the concert didn't work. At festivals, people want to be outside, they want to walk around." (The VBC, a Jam partner, did not respond to a request for comment regarding the decision to hold some 2011 Big Spring Jam sets indoors.)

Jennings first got into concert promotion in the mid- to late-80s, working with acts such as Bon Jovi, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Widespread Panic. He's the promoter for upcoming Huntsville shows featuring '70s shock-rocker Alice Cooper (Aug. 9) and the Salt N Pepa-headlined "I Love The '90s Tour" (June 2). At age 18, Jennings started his entrepreneurial life with the baseball card retailer Jennings Collectibles and then opened local Argosy gift shops. Years later he was part of the group that bought the Huntsville Stars. He was also part-owner of the Huntsville Blast hockey team and Huntsville Lasers basketball team.

Most festivals are highly dependent on weather and for its first 10 years Big Spring Jam had the benefit of being relatively dry. Jennings recalls a peak Jam year in 2004 was followed in 2005 with a major rain event Sunday and complete wash-out of sets by classic-rockers Journey and other key acts. The festival came back and was profitable after the 2005 weather situation, Jennings said.

Cage the Elephant performs at Big Spring Jam. (File photo)

But by then things were changing.

In the early 2000s, Bonnaroo (held in Manchester, Tenn., a 90-minute drive from Huntsville) , Hangout (in Gulf Shores) and other destination festivals rose up. They were stocked with mega-headliners and ultra-hip support acts. This made for weather-proof lineups that fans would purchase tickets for, well in advance. Indio, Calif. mega festival Coachella sells out in advance. It's a different scale and market, but in contrast, 85 percent of Big Spring Jam tickets were sold week-of or at the event. That's a ton of risk for organizers.

Birmingham's City Stages would cease to exist after 2009. Jubilee City Fest shut down in 2012. Mobile's Bayfest was cancelled in 2015, weeks before that year's version was scheduled.

"These things have a life," Jennings said. "And I think in Huntsville, Big Spring Jam had a life and it was a very good one while it lasted. But when it was over it wasn't something you just wanted to keep dragging out every year just to do it. You wanted to do it because it was a quality product that you were proud of and people enjoyed coming."

After its disappointing 2011, Big Spring Jam was done.

Now almost five years later, Huntsville still doesn't have another large-scale music festival. Panoply is a visual-arts festival with live music. WhistleStop is a barbecue fest with bands. As beloved and enjoyable as those two signature Huntsville events are, it would be a stretch to call either of them a true music festival.

Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle believes eventually another music festival will rise in the city. In 2015, a group was looking at doing something here similar to Austin, Texas' multi-media South By Southwest festival.

"Once every six months somebody will come up with the idea for this or that," Battle said. "And we'll have groups look at it, and we just have not come to the point that everybody's comfortable with the investment that has to be made on it yet. And it will be private dollars that will be put into that. It won't be government dollars that will be put into it. But I think at some point the right idea is going to hit and the right promoter is willing to invest in it and then we'll see some new successes out of it."

Citing the popular Downtown Huntsville Inc. Street Food Gatherings, Battle said, "When you can roll out 10 food trucks and have somebody playing the guitar and have 5,000 people turn out it would seem like your community is ready for a well-publicized weekend event." Yet, those increasingly mini-festival-like Street Food Gatherings highlight another complexity with the Huntsville market, Jennings said: "Right now, the food truck rallies downtown are drawing big crowds. One of the reasons? It's free. Huntsville has always been a town that turns out for things like that, but the minute you put a price tag on it, people start staying away." Jennings says when Big Spring Jam began, weekend passes were $35 and $55 was the highest they ever rose to. (Tickets for the 2011 Jam's indoor VBC country shows were an additional $75 for two-nights.)

Fans cheer on Akon as he performs on the WZYP stage at the Big Spring Jam, Sunday Sept. 27, 2009. (File photo)

"We constantly, constantly heard how high our ticket prices were," Jennings said. "The same person would go buy a ticket for $65 to see a concert at the Von Braun Center, shows that I was putting on, to see one act and there was a real sticker shock for our $45 for the (Big Spring Jam) weekend. [Laughs.]"

Battle said it's highly possible Huntsville's next major festival could be focused on something besides music, maybe technology or a comic-con. Regardless of theme, Battle said large-scale festivals are, "a great way to show off your city. You can bring people from all over the Southeast in and it's a great thing to do for that, but also gives your own citizens something to do."

Bob Rogers is Vice President of Conventions for the Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau. The greatest economic impact of a large-scale, Big Spring Jam type festival? "Rooms are the driver, at least where we're concerned," Rogers said. "Big Spring Jam was wonderful because it filled up downtown and people came in from out of town and you have these people who buy hotel rooms, spend money and eat. The economic interest was tremendous for that. Now if it's just a festival that's going to draw people locally or around us where they can drive in or drive out, not so much."

Big Spring Jam utilized a wide-net philosophy in terms of booking. In any given year you could see artists ranging from T-Pain to Alan Jackson to Cage the Elephant. City Stages, Bayfest, Jubilee City Fest and other mid-sized market festivals utilized a similar formula. Chattanooga's Riverbend, celebrating its 35th year in 2016, returns Jun 10-18 with an old-school diverse lineup, featuring acts like Heart, Shovels + Rope, Fishbone and Umphree's McGee.

Dixie Chicks perform at Big Spring Jam. (File photo)

However, when the new Sloss Music & Arts Festival arose in Birmingham in 2015, it was with a decidedly indie-music-focused lineup. Thirty-three artists performing across three stages. The kind of acts highly likely to appeal to fans in their 20s and 30s. Avett Brothers. Modest Mouse. Tyler, the Creator. According to festival organizers Sloss Fest 2015 drew around 25,000 attendees across its two days. (Headliners for Sloss Fest 2016, set for July 16 and 17, include Ryan Adams and The Flaming Lips.)

Huntsville resident Michael Timberlake is an avid live music fan, and has attended festivals including Bonnaroo, Outside Lands, City Stages, Big Spring Jam, Hangout and Music Midtown. Timberlake feels that if a new, Sloss-sized festival arose in Huntsville, being genre-specific might be a key for success. "You could book artists like (Jason) Isbell, Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton for an Americana niche," Timberlake, an attorney by trade, suggested.

The debut 2015 Sloss Fest lineup was peppered with Birmingham's hottest local bands, including St. Paul & the Broken Bones. Jonathan Byham plays guitar with Seminole Strut, a talented young Huntsville rock group that's released a strong debut LP and is also one of this city's best-draws at bars. Bynum said it would be a huge deal for local acts to perform at a large-scale Huntsville music festival. "If Black Keys or Alabama Shakes is the headliner and then a few rows below it's Seminole Strut or (fellow local act) Dawn Osborne Band, then it kind of groups us with those kinds of musicians."

Huntsville alt-country singer/songwriter Amy McCarley tours heavily. She's opened for well-established roots acts including Marty Stuart and John Hiatt. Any time she's able to get in front of larger crowds - like at a sizable festival - opening for bigger artists in a comparable genre, there's significant potential to add fans. And possibly even secure future work as a touring support act. McCarley said, "I think it also really helps a fan-base that's been believing in an artist's music to fill in that picture and validate their beliefs: 'There she is. Just like I thought all along.'"

A focus on high-wattage North Alabama acts might be an interesting Huntsville festival angle. With chart-topping soul rockers Alabama Shakes and Americana star Jason Isbell, from Athens and Greenhill respectively, music from this part of the state is burning particularly bright right now. Of course, festival funding and tour routing play a major role in any lineup, but a new Huntsville fest with Isbell headlining Friday and the Shakes on Saturday sure sounds potent. Mix in the city's vibrant craft-beer and food-truck scenes and you might have a Huntsville music festival with legit "destination" appeal.

Florence indie-rockers Belle Adair recently opened several concerts for Alabama Shakes on tour. In addition to playing drums with Belle Adair, Reed Watson is also label manager for Single Lock Records, the Florence based imprint co-owned by ex-Civil Wars frontman John Paul White. "You look at the state of Alabama and the action is in North Alabama," Watson said. "And there needs to be a showcase and something to bring people in. I think our talent here can hang with anyone and the opportunity to put all those different things on the same bill and the same stage would be really powerful for the communities that make up North Alabama."

Huntsville bluesman "Microwave Dave" Gallaher has performed at festivals in Europe and the U.S., including Big Spring Jam. While Gallaher has doubts about a large Huntsville fest succeeding without mainstream acts, he thinks recent Alabama artists' big-time success is encouraging. "That's got people thinking, 'Gee maybe we're sitting on a great resource and just don't even recognize it,'" Gallaher joked. "It's kind of like when the British shoved the blues right back down our throats."

Big Spring Jam. (File photo)

There's also a chance (or maybe hope) that a new Huntsville music festival could help forge the city's first real breakthrough artist. Huntsville's own version of Alabama Shakes or Jason Isbell. Thus far many of Huntsville's notable musical acts have been more underground in nature, like '80s indie rockers Sex Clark Five or 21st century rap-duo G-Side.

Codie G, general manager of Huntsville hip-hop record label Slow Motion Soundz, sees the rise of local breweries and growing buzz downtown as an indication "the temperature is right" for a new, large-scale music fest here. "Huntsville's too big not to have something like Sloss Fest," Codie said. "But I would say this, and I hate to sound crazy, but it doesn't always have to be family-friendly either. Sometimes I think Huntsville tries to mix grown entertainment and kid entertainment in the same space, and I think it would have to be age-appropriate and just people have a good time and let their hair down."

Leon Burnette is a former road manager of such R&B artists as The Commodores, Rick James and Midnight Star. A former Los Angeles resident, Burnette feels a true music festival would really add to quality of life for the many Huntsvillians who are transplants. "I have friends that travel from Huntsville to go to other festivals because they're used to doing that," Burnette said. "Having a major festival would not only increase our quality of life but would also attract people who want to leave big cities and come to cities like Huntsville. I ended up in Huntsville because I like the quality of life but I have to go elsewhere to get my festival fix, my live music fix, man."

David Milly worked at Big Spring Jam as a production coordinator with Theatrical Lighting Systems. Since then Milly has played a role in growing the Concerts at Three Caves outdoor music series. He said "the thing that's probably in the way (of a new festival) right now is the expense of talent and production and not knowing if you're going to break even." Finances for a music fest are no joke. Jennings, who initially bankrolled Big Spring Jam before taking on partners, recalls a first year budget of around $500,000. The Jam budget would eventually grow to more than $2 million, Jennings said. (A for-profit venture, Big Spring Jam also contributed to various charities over the years, via the Huntsville Heritage Foundation.)

In 2015, Rocket City Sounds booking agent Justin Tidwell organized the new, small one-day Spring Fest at Yellowhammer Brewing. The debut featured NPR-approved country-rock act Banditos as a headliner and attracted a crowd of about 350. This April, Spring Fest at Yellowhammer boasted large staging and acclaimed garage-rockers The Whigs headlined. Attendance doubled. Both editions featured main and acoustic stages with a mix of rock, country, singer/songwriters and alternative. Tidwell grew up going to Big Spring Jam and said he saw "some great bands there and some terrible bands there, but I loved it." While he isn't modeling Spring Fest as the "new Big Spring Jam" he hopes to build it "into a huge thing for Huntsville."

"People ask me all the time, 'Why Huntsville?'" Tidwell said. "And not to be a smart-ass but my response is 'Why not?' Bringing music to Huntsville, that's what I want to do."

Updated May 11 to correct the spelling of Jonathan Byham's last name and Slow Motion Soundz.