Words and Photos By Joe Vickrey
The more I go to Provo Music Scene Town Hall, the more fun I seem to have. It’s weird to suddenly have so many friends that I’m excited to see. My first time going was a bit nerve wracking, but now I’m giving hugs, catching up with people I’ve jammed with, and I’m eager to say, “Hey, I don’t know you. What do you do in the scene?” Before I begin with the actual recap, I just have to say: we’re so lucky to live in such a friendly and welcoming music scene.
To start, John-Ross, better known as JR, hosted with Jennifer Udom who also took notes that will be later published as the minutes for the meeting. Jennifer later joked that she was the Provo Music Scene Secretary, but we’ll come back to that.
Announcements
JR and Jennifer began with a few short announcements. To start, provomusicscene.com is still going strong. They invited artists to continue adding projects and events to their community sourced calendar. They also asked that if you’re a marketing or Notion expert to reach out on the site.
Next, theFINDlab is going to start hosting more regular events. Starting on January 15, they’ll be hosting an electronic/EDM dance party every Thursday. Other events include movie nights and karaoke. Reach out to @thefindlab on Instagram for more information.
Restructured Town Hall Meetings
Moving into the first major topic of the night, it was announced that the Provo Music Town Hall meetings were being restructured around the format of two major discussion points and one small presentation each meeting. With that, they brought up the new Provo Music Scene Discord server. If you don’t want to do Discord, then they invited you to email Provomusictownhall@gmail.com, but the Discord is going to be a pretty cool way to be plugged into the community.
The Provo Music Scene Discord server will help them source announcements and the topics for the next Town Hall meeting as well as display the minutes of the previous meeting. To paraphrase, JR said this new format was to help real issues get talked about while still giving everyone time to get to know each other.
They also added that the Discord server will be a great opportunity to help everyone can get their voices heard. Formulating an idea in your head? How do I get help from the community? Where can I find a drummer? Bring it to the Discord. This will also help the Town Hall focus on specific issues or opportunities. It felt like an inspired idea, and was the perfect segue into the second topic of the night…
Mayor Judkins Attending Provo Town Hall
Provo’s Mayor, Marsha Judkins, will be attending February’s Provo Town Hall. I cannot overstate how huge of a deal this is. Mayor Judkins has already shown an interest in reviving the Provo Rooftop Concert Series in some form according to a few attendees, and spending an evening with Provo’s music scene is such a validating and an exciting thing to hear. If watching Zohran Mamdani has taught me anything, it’s that a mayor can make a difference, so I’m stoked.
Rather than bombarding our new mayor with random questions and ideas, JD explained that questions for Marsha would be compiled through their Discord server and presented to her in a more organized fashion. He strongly encouraged everyone to submit their ideas for the group to bounce off of, and voiced his personal idea about using the meeting as an opportunity to ask if some of Provo’s arts grants could be funneled into mini grants to help artists make albums and tour.
You could feel the collective goosebumps across the group. How cool would that be? Imagine your favorite band gets $500 from Provo city to throw a benefit show, tour, have photos and art done from another local artist, or make your new favorite song. It’s exciting to say the least. JR and Jennifer encouraged the group to do research on how music grants have worked in other areas as not to pitch an exact idea to the mayor, but to help inform and guide the discussion with the right questions.
Others in the group voiced that they would love to see this potential grant money go for music education opportunities. Allowing a space to be rented for community classes for anything from synthesizer class to instrument specific lessons. Of course, this is all hypothetical at the moment, but as one attendee put it, the more people your idea can bring together, the more likely it is to be considered. If you’ve got any ideas, I’d also recommend adding your voice to the choir at the Provo Music Scene Discord!
Closing Time
It was hard not to feel the contagious optimism about the music scene by the end of the meeting. It’s an exciting time to be involved in the community, and the Town Hall exemplified that. Questions were all treated with validity, laughs were had, and it was time to mingle. On top of the meeting regulars I got to catch up with, I met a photographer, the group who runs events at theFINDlab, a fellow musician who also loves Soul and R&B, and I even ran into a singer I jammed with when I first moved to Utah nine years ago.
For anyone looking to expand their friend circle or get further involved in the scene, Town Hall is the place to be! Hopefully we’ll see you at the next one on February 3, 2026 at 3Hive.