Executive Profile: How Concert Stuff Group Brought The Concert For Carolina To Life And Helped Restore A Region

For the live industry, charity begins on the road.

The past year has been one of compassion and collaboration, with natural disasters compelling many production companies to put the bottom line aside for the greater good during events like FireAid at Kia Forum and Intuit Dome on Jan. 30 in Inglewood, California, and Concert For Carolina on Oct. 26 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Headlined by Carolina native sons Luke Combs and Eric Church (with guests including Billy Strings and James Taylor, among others), Concert For Carolina raised $24.5 million for western areas of the state ravaged by Hurricane Helene in September 2024. The concert was attended by 82,000 with proceeds from ticket sales, merchandise and a livestream donated to various organizations supporting the recovery including Second Harvest Food Bank, Samaritan’s Purse and Church’s organization Chief Cares.

This executive profile is part of Pollstar’s 2025-2026 Concert Support Services Directory, which can be purchased here.

Among the first to pledge their support was North Carolina-based Concert Stuff Group (CSG), which brings together 13 specialized businesses serving the live event industry under one expansive tent. Each company specializes in integral aspects of building an event from inception to completion by offering transportation solutions for gear and touring staff, field and flooring protection, engineered staging and structures, high-end production, crowd control barriers and more.

“The success of C4C was a combination of many people,” said Chris “KAPPY” Kappy, manager of Luke Combs. “The Brammers, Jim and Michael, are key partners in this event. From hour one, Jim and Michael didn’t hesitate to offer all the services they readily had at hand. Staging, lighting, audio, video, trucking, staff, barricades, flooring, whatever they had access to was on the table to give at no cost to help the people devastated in Western North Carolina. Jim was so hurt, and you could feel the compassion on every call we had. There was no way that the momentum of love coming from CSG wasn’t going to be felt and appreciated to make the impact we knew we could make. The Teppers, Brammers, Luke, Eric, AEG, Live Nation, and everyone involved worked seamlessly and tirelessly to make this happen, and made sure that nothing slowed down the most important factor, and that was the millions of dollars raised to help the people most in need.”

The company dates to 1986 when Jim Brammer and Jeff Cranfill launched the mid-state’s first production company, Southern Lites, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1987 they formed Southeast Audio and were joined by a third partner, Don “Bogie” Cates. It became the foundation of the global production company now known as Special Event Services (SES). Jason Farah, who started with the company as an audio engineer in 1994, became a partner in 2003. Cates retired in 2014 and in 2024, Cranfill and Farah stepped away from being partners, but both remain active in the company.

In November 2020, SES opened a new 52,000-square-foot headquarters on 15 acres in Mocksville, North Carolina, 25 miles from their original Winston-Salem outpost and Brammer’s son, Michael Brammer, was made a fully vested partner in the company after starting in the warehouse in 2011 and working his way up through the company.

“I jokingly call myself the resident millennial on the board at CSG,” says Michael Brammer, Chief Strategy Officer for CSG. “Having that role gives me a unique perspective into the generational shift that is happening within our industry currently. It is deeply humbling to carry the torch as one of the first second-generation companies in our industry. This moment feels like both a tribute to where my mentors have come from and a doorway to where my peers are going.”

CSG was formally incorporated in 2024 and building alliances and relationships and fostering innovation are central to the mission.
“While it has certainly not been easy, and definitely challenging at times, having Jim, as well as the other partners and coworkers mentoring and advising me, has made the transition as smooth as anyone could wish for,” continues Brammer. “As for the future of our group and our industry as a whole, it is very bright with so much opportunity. Seeing the passion and creativeness in my peers and coworkers is inspiring and makes coming to work every day enjoyable. We truly have the best team of people at CSG and I would take them with me anywhere.”

Jim Brammer had the vision to plug holes within the company’s menu of services and create solutions for an evolving industry, including developing a racking system for seats that resulted in the creation of Concert Chairs, another CSG division, in 2000.

The company’s growth was driven by the need for better production quality and the desire to provide comprehensive services, resulting in the creation of the growing network of businesses that make up CSG today. Each one is a viable entity on its own, including the addition of 7 Cinematics in June. The Emmy-winning concert broadcasting and cinematic production company adds live music video production to CSG’s portfolio of services.

From logistics, staffing, seating, AV and the design and construction of a massive in-the-round stage, CSG tapped four decades of experience and the vast resources within their family of associated businesses including SES for audio and lighting; G2 Structures for the stage; SET for all trucking; Musical Coaches, Guardian Barrier Services for barricades and cable ramps; and Fabrineering, which provided all fabrication of G2 and Guardian Barrier Services equipment for Concert For Carolina.

With limited time and lofty expectations, company founder and CEO Jim Brammer shares how the benefit concert came together.

Pollstar: What did it mean, putting together a company that was able to come in on the fly and quickly organize a massive benefit concert that raised millions of dollars for North Carolina’s hardest hit communities?

Jim Brammer: I’ve got to tell you, it was a huge blessing to be in that position. It’s definitely going to go down as one of the crowning events in my career. Every now and then, the crossroads of opportunity and preparedness meet – and unfortunately it was a disaster that created opportunity, but we were prepared.

How early were you involved?
You know, the hurricane hit that Friday and that Friday night, Luke [Combs] was saying, “We got to do something, get the Brammers on the phone.” He and Michael were on the phone. Then the next morning I was on the phone with Luke’s manager, and we had AEG and the agents talking about, “What can we do?”

I said, “Guys, we have enough talent from North Carolina to do a concert for North Carolina. Luke had already talked to Eric Church, and Eric was all in so I said, “With Luke and Eric alone, we have two stadium headliners. You know, we have The Avett Brothers, we have Chris Rice, we’ve got a ton of people that are from North Carolina that will come together and make this event successful. We don’t need to go outside of our own people.” That was kind of a hard sell in the moment to the agencies.

What were the other hurdles?
Fortunately for us, we had just done George Strait in the round at Texas A&M and set a record for the largest ticketed event in concert history in North America. That system had come back to our yard in Mooresville and was still on the truck. Michael [Brammer] had just completed the previous Luke tour, the arena tour with Luke in the round, so he knew that Luke would immediately go for something in the round.

We’re on a Zoom call that Saturday morning, and [manager] Chris Kappy looks at me and says, “Well, Jim, you’ve been doing this longer than any of us, what are the major pitfalls?’ And I said, “Basically, a couple: number one, too many cooks in the kitchen – and there’s enough people on this Zoom right now that we don’t need any more because the more cooks, the more the expenses go up, the bigger the production gets and then the next thing you know, the expenses overwhelm the good we’ve done.”

And I said, “Number two is everyone doesn’t go all in.” Luke says, “What do you mean by all in?” and I said, “Well, you know a lot of events you hear a portion of the proceeds will go to benefit the charity, or the net proceeds, and that makes it very difficult to raise sponsor dollars, because corporate America thinks, ‘Well, you’re still going to get yours, and I’m the one footing the bill. I should just donate directly to this thing myself and get all the praise and glory.’’

If we go all in, then we can go to the corporate sponsor and say, “Hey, we’re all in. Will you be all in?” This is about the event. It’s bigger than any one artist and the artists check their egos at the door.

How did you settle on Bank of America Stadium?
All along I wanted to do it in the stadium because my one stipulation was taking the in-the-round system and putting it in the middle of Bank of America Stadium and playing to 80,000-plus people. I got a little bit of pushback on that from the agencies, but hey, ye of little faith, watch and learn. This will work.

Luke had to call David Tepper, the owner of the [NFL Carolina] Panthers, and ask him to come all in. And David and Nicole Tepper got a big check mark in my book for that. Everyone ended up going all in on everything.

What was the timeline?
It was an absolutely amazing effort from the get-go. It only took us a week or 10 days to put everything together for a show that was going to be 28 days from now.

How did it stay on the rails once word got out?
It was so funny. A couple of people wanted to keep inviting artists, and they already invited Keith Urban and Sheryl Crow, and I said “Wait, wait, stop.” We only have four hours and we can’t keep inviting people. And I said, “If I can get James Taylor to come to the gig, will you stop inviting anyone else?” “Oh, yeah, if we get James Taylor, absolutely.” So, I had to call in a few favors on that one.

Looking back, was it worth the effort?
You know it was a great, great show. Great night. Everyone was fantastic. There were no egos – anything you might think you would see in a co-headline tour, there was none of that.

Everyone worked with everyone, and no one was like, “Well, I’ve got to have my this, I’ve got to have my that.” It was by far the most successful relief concert or benefit show I’ve ever been involved in. It was terrific.