![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/hayden-mill-tempe-landmark.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTempe’s iconic Hayden Flour Mill.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTempe’s iconic Hayden Flour Mill.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Tempe Preservation\/CC BY-SA 2.0\/Flickr<\/p>\n
Some Valley venues <\/a>boast built-in spectacle, perfect for amping up a concert\u2019s atmosphere. Topping that list is Tempe\u2019s Hayden Flour Mill<\/a>. The 107-year-old landmark\u2019s towering silos set an epic backdrop for shows at its outdoor event space, including the new Mill Music Sessions.<\/p>\n The free, all-ages concert series, launched in October, features notable Valley bands performing at the base of Hayden Mill, while local creatives display their works and conduct live art sessions. Promoters say it aims to foster creativity and support the Tempe Arts and Music Coalition.<\/p>\n They also hope it can build toward a larger goal. Namely, restoring Tempe\u2019s \u201cmusical heartbeat\u201d and recapturing some of its \u201880s and \u201890s heyday as a concert destination.<\/p>\n Jacqueline Swan, Tempe Arts and Music Coalition\u2019s president, says the event was partially inspired by the city\u2019s live music legacy. Decades ago, downtown Tempe was home to iconic Mill Avenue rock bars like Long Wong\u2019s that hosted such influential bands as Gin Blossoms and The Pistoleros.<\/p>\n \u201cMusic is one of the things Tempe is known for,\u201d she says. \u201cMy first outdoor show was at Hayden Square (Amphitheatre) when I was a teenager. It was this big punk festival with a lot of local bands. But you haven\u2019t seen as much of those types of events (in recent years).\u201d<\/p>\n While the area\u2019s live music scene has dimmed considerably in the ensuing years due to redevelopment, Swan thinks it can flourish again. Mill Music Sessions is a first step towards that goal.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to incubate more art and music in Tempe in unexpected places or an unexpected way,\u201d she says. \u201cSo to be able to activate a historic site like Hayden Mill with live art and live music was just the kind of thing we wanna be doing. We\u2019re bringing more music back to Mill, which I think people really miss. Plus, we\u2019re providing some new paid opportunities that didn\u2019t exist before.\u201d<\/p>\n How Mill Music Sessions was born<\/strong><\/p>\n The event came about after local promoter Ryan Eland pitched the concept of a limited concert series at Hayden Mill to the city and the Downtown Tempe Authority earlier this year. After securing funding, he approached Tempe Arts and Music Coalition.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful handshake between our music community and the city, and it\u2019s not always been the best relationship,\u201d Eland told the Tempe Tribune last month.<\/p>\n Swan says Eland\u2019s promoting experience and her knowledge of the local art scene helped make the event a reality.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has a lot of his own music connections, so he took care of kind of booking the bands and sound engineering and stage design,\u201d Swan says. \u201cAnd then I started getting in touch with artists.\u201d<\/p>\n The first edition of Mill Music Sessions \u201cwent off great,\u201d Swan says. More than 1,000 people turned out for the event, which featured seven artists displaying works and sets from Wyves, Banana Gun and Big Finish.<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt really great to be able to come together with this team of locals and do something that felt a little bit different from what\u2019s usually going on (downtown) Tempe and was really only focused on art and music,\u201d Swan says.<\/p>\n Swan is hoping for a similar turnout at this month\u2019s edition of Mill Music Sessions on Friday, Nov. 20. Tempe rock band Farmer Wilson will headline, with two additional bands being announced in the coming weeks. The event will benefit Tempe Arts and Music Coalition, and a beer garden is also planned. Patrons are encouraged to bring blankets and chairs for the lawn area of Hayden Mill\u2019s event space.<\/p>\n A third edition of Mill Music Sessions is set for Jan. 31.<\/p>\n Swan says she hopes the series can help fill gaps in the city\u2019s music and gallery spaces while bringing people together.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to bring this sense of community and art that used to be really lively and ubiquitous across Tempe,\u201d Swan says. \u201cI think the crossover with this event to our mission is there\u2019s a lack of music space, gallery space, affordable places that people can go and musicians can perform at. And this sort of helped check all those boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n Mill Music Sessions. 6 to 10 p.m., Friday, Nov. 30 and Jan. 31, at Hayden Flour Mill, 119 Mill Ave., Tempe. Admission is free.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tempe’s iconic Hayden Flour Mill. Tempe Preservation\/CC BY-SA 2.0\/Flickr Some Valley venues boast built-in spectacle, perfect for amping…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":348449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,132130,1589,26228,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-348448","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-concert-previews","12":"tag-phoenix","13":"tag-tempe","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115475632983524400","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/mill-music-sessions-performance.jpg\")
A scene from the first edition of Mill Music Sessions in October.<\/p>\n