Dave Bohrer / The Meridian StarStudents from Tri-County Academy of Flora, Mississippi, file into the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience on Friday, April 26. School field trips and bus tours are regular visitors to The MAX, which is celebrating its one year anniversary.

The $50 million Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience passed a milestone Sunday, the first year anniversary of opening its doors with great fanfare and expectant crowds.

Mark Tullos, the CEO and president of “The MAX,” said his three years with the project has transformed downtown Meridian itself, with increased foot traffic and interest in downtown real estate for businesses.

Jerome Trahan, the marketing director of The Max, said the museum saw 54,886 visitors during its first year and expected an additional bump in the first weekend of May, the last weekend of the Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited.

An initial feasibility study estimated The Max would see 150,000 visitors annually at maximum operation but Trahan noted that the study also said it could take up to three years to reach maximum operation.

Business owners along Front Street and just blocks from The Max, however, say they haven’t seen the boom of success they anticipated. 

“I think it’s beautiful and everything and I think it’s an honor to have it across the street but I don’t think Meridian as a whole has changed,” said Polly Smith, whose daughter Tracie Brantley owns Uptown Girl.

Smith, who works mostly Mondays, when the museum is closed, noted that there had been more foot traffic downtown since the opening of the Jim Henson Exhibition – Imagination Unlimited in January but that she’d seen less people downtown since Jean’s Restaurant closed in July.

“I’ve lived in Meridian all my life; I want to make Meridian great like it used to be,” Smith said. “I think we could use some more businesses in downtown but also we need more people supporting businesses in downtown… people just don’t come to downtown and support downtown businesses.”

Smith said some customers had complaints about a lack of parking in downtown and some out-of-town customers got confused on downtown’s one-way streets.

“We’ve had some come in but not like we hoped,” Smith said. “I hate to be negative because I want to see Meridian grow but we need people to come downtown and shop in downtown.”

Coming this week at the Max

The Jimmie Rodgers Festival will open with St. Paul & The Broken Bones at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 2, at The Max.

The Max will also celebrate its one-year anniversary at 7 p.m. Friday, May 3 with a cocktail party, dancing, music and auctions.

The public’s last opportunity to see The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited will be May 4, on Mississippi Day, celebrating Henson’s hometown of Leland. The Museum opens its doors at 9 a.m. 

Some business owners remained optimistic that business would pick up because of The Max. Like Smith, Robert Loeb said he occasionally saw out-of-town customers, especially on weekends, at his Loeb’s retail store.

“Just this last Saturday there was a lot of people in downtown. There was a lot of cars on the street for a Saturday,” Loeb said. “I think we could use more retail in downtown (and) give people more reasons to come down and see businesses here.”

Loeb said, specifically, he’d like to see a movie theater in downtown or some sort of convenience store.

“We’re seeing more people downtown… and I think downtown is making some good strides,” Loeb said. “I’m optimistic but we were thinking it would be more immediate.”

Restaurants on Front Street had mixed reviews.

“We were busier from the workers that were building The Max than The Max (visitors),” Aie’s Taste of Thai owner Onjira Scrimpshire, who goes by Aie, said. “Maybe a couple people more.”

Beau Blackledge, a manager at Mimmo’s Bistro, said that in the few months since they opened he’d seen customers from The Max.

“I think we do get a pretty good bit of business from (The Max), especially when (The Max) does an event,” Blackledge said. “I always look for that bright green wristband (but) it kind of depends.”

The learning curve

At The Max, the learning curve associated with the institution over the last year varied from utility bills to visitor interactions with the exhibits, Tullos said.

“I’ve really been calling it our pioneer year because we really didn’t know how the building operated; we didn’t know what to expect with like the utility bill; we didn’t know what to expect with attendance and marketing,” Tullos said. “We’ve really learned a lot this year so I feel like we’ve had a great success.” 

Approximately 100 volunteers help visitors navigate the second floor exhibits, which, unlike other museums, isn’t designed to be linear, Tullos said, even encouraging visitors to interact with the exhibits, such as building blocks, a miniature garden or jukebox.

“It’s kind of fun to watch visitors on the second floor, especially families. We didn’t realize it could take about four hours to get through there,” Tullos said. “it was a learning curve for us in that we didn’t know how visitor interaction was going to be but now we’ve got it down to a science.”

Keeping a focus on play, and inspiring future artists, remains at the core of its mission but Tullos said the reputation of the museum would continue to grow. 

“We know Mississippi topics may not be of interest to people on the interstate yet but they will be as we grow our brand,” Tullos said. “We’re looking forward to building an identity and a brand to bring more tourists into Mississippi (and) to build downtown.”

Tullos said he anticipated seeing more businesses opening in downtown, such as Mimmo’s, and continuing to bring tourists into the Queen City.

“I tell city leadership, ‘We’re building an urban mall downtown’… Meridian is staged for tremendous growth and we have all of the tools to make that happen. We just need patience and guidance from the community. And support from the community, too,” Tullos said.

Henson exhibit a boost

After a sluggish beginning, Tullos said bringing the Jim Henson Exhibition – Imagination Unlimited, in January really turned attendance around. The limited exhibition, coming from Los Angeles, made Meridian its only stop in the Southeast.

“We’ve been pretty good with our attendance. In the beginning, we were having struggles with our attendance the first few months, just getting people off of the interstate, but Henson’s helped us turn that around and our name and our brand is getting out there – in the southeast particularly,” Tullos said. “Because interstate tourism really is our group and we’ve had our first motorcoaches, we had a motorcoach come in from the Northeast for the first time, and so we’ll see more motorcoaches tourism and adults coming through.”

Tullos called each person, especially family members of Henson or other Mississippi artists, ambassadors of The Max who shared their enthusiasm across the country. 

“Once that word starts building I think we’ll see tremendous, tremendous tourism start growing,” Tullos said. “The biggest takeaway that we hear most from visitors, particularly from people from out of state, they’re shocked at how many great artists’ and entertainers’ origins are tied to this state. That’s the most profound – They look stunned when they leave the second floor exhibits because they just can’t believe that all these people came out of Mississippi.”

Tullos said that despite unexpected hiccups, such as visitors having difficult wayfinding in downtown Meridian, the focus remained on the stories behind Mississippi’s greatest artists and the future generations of artists yet to come.

“We tell these wonderful stories about hundreds of artists and musicians at the museum and we share their life’s story with you… but we want you to leave that and perhaps be inspired to be creative yourself. Particularly young people,” Tullos said. “We’re hoping to become the education central for Mississippi’s young artists where they come to get a higher level of educational training and perhaps they’ll be the next people in the hall of fame.”

In addition to the facility’s three studios: recording, ceramics and painting, Tullos said they hoped to open up a studio of theater and develop summer programming for students in East Mississippi. To learn more, visit msarts.org.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article included the following paragraph: Though Tullos remained upbeat, the 43,981 attendance (as of Sunday) fell short of the anticipated 150,000 visitors he predicted a year ago.

Jerome Trahan, the Max’s director of Marketing, clarified the context of the 150,000 prediction and amended the attendance numbers to 54,886.