A legendary Charlotte party has a new name and location. Can it capture the same old magic?
Larry Farber and Bob Durkin have a long list of fond memories of Alive After Five, an uptown after-work party and concert series that for years was regarded by attendees as an event at which to see and be seen.
Like the time in 2006, when Farber, who helped create Alive After Five, was guilted by a pal into booking a then-unknown Atlanta act called the Zac Brown Band at a cost of $800. Like the time right after Michael Jackson died in 2009, when thousands converged on the old Epicentre — which then was populated by several bars managed by a former company of Durkin’s — to revel with a King of Pop tribute band. Or the time between those two years when Farber and Durkin weren’t yet partners, but were actually at odds. (More on that in a minute.)
After Alive After Five’s 2019 season, however, the Epicentre began a downward spiral that would end in its demise; then the pandemic struck.
Over the course of the next three summers, Alive After Five would begin fading from memory.
But while its legacy as an uptown event may be history, Farber and Durkin this spring will attempt to help social-scene-minded Charlotteans create new memories, in a new location: Symphony Park in SouthPark, where on Thursday, April 20, they’ll launch the newly resurrected version of Alive After Five under the name SouthPark After Five.
The event/concert series will run six consecutive Thursdays and is free to enter except for on May 4 — when that night’s SouthPark After Five will serve as a kickoff party for the Wells Fargo Championship, the annual PGA tournament held at Quail Hollow Club.
Here are the key things we learned about the event from Farber and Durkin during a recent conversation with the pair.
They’ve actually been here before (or close, at least)
In 2009, Farber spearheaded the idea for an Alive After Five event at Piedmont Town Center in SouthPark, and a big focal point of that was a nighttime party held the weekend of the golf tournament and aimed at tournament spectators. It ran four years, but didn’t return after its 2012 campaign.
Bringing the ‘After Five’ brand to SouthPark wasn’t their idea
As Durkin explains: “Right now there’s an initiative in SouthPark with SouthPark Community Partners ... to activate for events and bring that community together, like Ballantyne does, and uptown does. And so Adam Rhew (the president of SouthPark Community Partners) brought us the idea of activating at SouthPark Mall and Symphony Park, because they want to activate it more.”
Now, we get it; “initiative” and “activate” aren’t very user-friendly words. But that’s for context ...
... This, meanwhile, is what they liked about the pitch
“Anyone who’s gonna remember (the old) Alive After Five is gonna remember it as a great event, a place to meet new people dressed up right after work. We’re gonna try to re-create that,” says Durkin, whose company Southern Entertainment will produce the events. “And the ironic thing is, most of the people that were out downtown back then are now living in the suburbs with their kids probably, and want to have another little taste of that. But they can still be home by 9 o’clock.”
Farber, a co-founder of Middle C Jazz and Music With Friends, adds that the dense concentration of high-end luxury apartments within walking distance and the just-generally-growing residential population in the area will play to their advantage — as will the ease of parking compared with uptown.
For the uptown Alive After Five, he says, “people would pay fifteen, twenty dollars, even back then, to park.” In SouthPark, parking at the mall is cost-free and largely stress-free.
In short, Durkin concludes: “People that live in SouthPark, people that work in SouthPark, will have an after-work event similar to what people are used to in downtown Charlotte. And I think SouthPark itself as a community is big enough and organized enough where they expect it to be pretty successful.”
The target audience? “SouthPark professionals, anybody from 21 to 65 that enjoys good music and wants to get out and meet some new people,” Durkin says. Or, at least, for all the parties except for the one on May 4.
That one is focused, he says, on tournament-goers or the tournament-adjacent crowd. Speaking of which ...
Regarding the ‘Wells Fargo Championship Tee-Off Concert’
“Having a nighttime event after it (the golf tournament) I think is well overdue,” Durkin says.
The hope, Farber adds, is that the ticketed event — which this year will feature Atlanta soft-rock cover band Yacht Rock Revue and benefit Champions for Education — becomes an annual thing; and that he and Durkin can add more social and music events tied to the Wells Fargo tournament over time. He points to events around the famed Waste Management Open in Phoenix as their inspiration, noting that “there are major shows, major concerts, major events going on that whole week that bring an enormous amount of people.”
“We definitely think that we can grow,” Farber says, “and I know Wells Fargo is interested that. We can grow this to multiple nights, and maybe even bigger talent.”
What about the rest of the series? Do they hope that’s annual, too?
The old Alive After Five concert series generally started earlier in April and routinely continued through August. So these six dates are more like a mini-series. “I would think this is a little bit of a trial run,” Farber explains. “But I would think if we do really well, we would potentially grow the event.”
Is a return to uptown on or off the table?
In its heyday at The Plaza at 2 Wachovia Center, Alive After Five “was a crazy-successful series,” Farber says — 3,000 to 4,000 attendees every week. But “I think towards the end, there were some other issues that were surfacing downtown that just made it harder. ... We aren’t saying that we will never maybe do it downtown again, but we just felt the timing was much better suited to do it in SouthPark until everybody’s back at work.”
Other important details:
When: Starting at 5 p.m. on the following Thursdays — April 20, April 27, May 11, May 18 and May 25. The May 4 event starts at 6 p.m. and will go till 11.
Where: Symphony Park, at the corner of Barclay Downs Drive and Carnegie Boulevard, next to SouthPark Mall.
Cost: Free to enter, except for on May 4. Tickets for the golf-themed party/concert are $25 each. (Approximately 1,500 tickets have already been sold. Organizers are hoping to ultimately draw roughly twice that.) Organizers haven’t set alcohol prices, but expect them to be more in line with restaurants and bars and not as high as at Spectrum Center or PNC Music Pavilion, for instance.
Scheduled bands: 20 Ride (Zac Brown Band tribute) on April 20; Breakfast Club (’80s covers) on April 27; Yacht Rock Revue on May 4; Sol Fusion on May 11; Landslide (Fleetwood Mac tribute) on May 18; and On the Border (Eagles tribute) on May 25.
What to expect: In addition to the live music, there’ll be vendors (including food trucks and craft-beverage sellers) and interactive art. The event is open to all ages, although obviously attendees must be 21 or older to drink alcohol.
More information: www.Southparkafter5.com.
Oh, about Farber and Durkin initially being at odds ...
Funny story. Short version: In 2008, out of nowhere, Durkin led the creation of “Epicentre at 5.” Like Alive After Five, it was geared toward the after-work crowd, and set on Thursdays during the warmer months.
Farber can laugh about it now, but he was incredulous back then.
After their parties started going head to head, a mutual friend suggested a meeting between the two. Farber took one, somewhat grudgingly.
“We met in my office,” Farber recalls. “I didn’t want to like them. But they weren’t mean about it. Bob just said, ‘You don’t own Thursdays in Charlotte. That’s the night we’ve marketed that people go out, and we think we’ve got a great spot.’” Durkin and his team didn’t budge.
Farber eventually softened. He recognized that Durkin was smart, that he was well-funded — and that it was “just crazy, because we really were going after the same crowd.”
He proposed joining forces. The rest is history.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story gave an incorrect day of the week for the event.
This story was originally published April 14, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
