By Arden Berry | Arts & Life Editor
From its first concert featuring Forrest Frank in April 2025 to its packed schedule this fall, Foster Pavilion has become Baylor’s go-to venue for headlining concerts. However, with the end of a contract approaching and the potential for larger audiences, Jason Cook, vice president of marketing and communications, and his team are looking toward other venues as well.
Foster Pavilion was built on a partnership between Baylor and the City of Waco. Cook said the city donated $35 million directly to the venue’s construction with the stipulation that Baylor would hold 10 ticketed professional events and 10 university events over the two years from when Foster received the official certificate of occupancy. This contract runs through the middle of this November, and Cook said Baylor is on track to fulfill these obligations.
“That’s kind of been the driving, is to make sure that we fulfill our obligations with the city in return for their generous contribution to Foster Pavilion,” Cook said.
As a result, Foster’s construction has helped grow the Baylor concert program significantly.
“We’ve gone from having zero concerts to having a full slate of concerts,” Cook said. “And we’re doing it for our students and their experiences that they have here, but also to shine a spotlight on Waco and using these live events as a great magnet to bring people to our community.”
Steve Richo, a co-founder of Noise New Media, the entertainment and marketing agency partnered with Baylor, said Foster Pavilion provides “second to none” backstage amenities for the artist and their team, as well as great sight lines for the audience throughout.
“We usually seat the venue up to the 180 degree line,” Richo said. “From stage left to stage right, no one behind. But we have actually begun selling a little bit behind them. So if you came to see Hudson Westbrook, we sat folks side of the stage. We had got actually even more people into the building than we had done on previous shows, and still maintain a great sight line.”
According to Richo, Foster Pavilion concerts typically seat about 5,400 people.
“If students haven’t been to Foster yet, it’s a different kind of concert experience,” Cook said. “Just because the venue is a very intimate venue, kind of like a theater kind of feel to it. And the acoustics are just wonderful in the building.”
However, as the concert program expands and brings in larger audiences, Cook and his team look at two larger venues: Magnolia Field and the inside of McLane Stadium.
“Foster has always been the centerpiece of the strategy because of that contract,” Cook said. “We weren’t necessarily looking to book major shows at McLane. We had never done a concert at the Baylor Ballpark. But I do think that the strategy has expanded a little bit more.”
When it comes to concerts, neither of these venues are untested, but neither had hosted a concert until after Foster’s first season. Magnolia Field hosted its first ever concert when Willie Nelson came this past spring. Richo said the ballpark seated about 7,000.
McLane Stadium had its first concert inside the stadium itself last August with The Boys from Oklahoma. According to Baylor Proud, over 37,000 tickets were sold. Cook said his team is in conversations with artists to fill the stadium again in the spring.
“We don’t have one booked for this August because we learned it was extremely hot to do at that time of year,” Cook said. “That was our first big foray into a big concert at McLane Stadium, and that generated a lot of interest.”
Richo said Waco’s access to population and growth in tourism help bring in such an audience.
“I’ve been coming to Waco and working with other clients in that area since probably 2010, and I have seen the transformation as an outsider, someone who doesn’t live there, to really become a desirable tourist destination,” Richo said. “So to bring folks in, and especially, I go back to Old Dominion, we’re going to attract folks from Dallas and Austin. And I think Waco is just a cool place to go now.”
As Baylor becomes a bigger player in Waco’s live music scene, Cook said Baylor’s venues, whether the intimate Foster Pavilion or crowded McLane Stadium, are among many other live venues, including The Backyard Bar Stage and Grill, Texas Music Cafe and Camp Fimfo.
“I think that people have not really thought of Waco being a live music hub because we haven’t had the big shows, the big venues, but you look at the ecosystem that exists here,” Cook said. “There’s a lot of live music happening in Waco. And we’re just excited to not take over that, but to be a part of it. And different types of artists, different scales, different types of venues. And I think that Baylor coming in, we’ve just been able to complete that live music story for the city.”
