June 30, 2026
Midway through a discussion this morning of gospel music shows and ticket sales and such, longtime city residents began whispering a milestone acronym in Charlotte’s lexicon. The acronym: CIAA.
The Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament first tipped off in Charlotte in 2006. Thousands of tournament ticket holders boosted Charlotte Black business establishments annually through Feb. 25-29, 2020. Two weeks after that show the world shut down for COVID-19, and by 2022 the tournament had moved on to Baltimore.
Prospects of another marquee event for Charlotte, as it turns out, may only be the beginning.
Don Jackson, who founded Chicago’s Central City Productions, will bring his Black-owned television production company and their 41st Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards show to Charlotte’s Spectrum Center Aug. 15. A number of other events will be held in the days preceding the Saturday show.
But by the time the Forum closed, Jackson had also said:
- The Awards show would be back next year.
- Jackson has been invigorated by Charlotte’s early embrace, and is looking at tying a number of his company’s productions to the city in the future. Can you spell another acronym – HBCU?
Charlotte residents dissatisfied with their situation in Charlotte’s ecosystem should stumble on one of Jackson’s autobiographical asides in the video above. He once wondered, he said, why it was that people who looked like him were so rarely shown on television. Go find it; we won’t spoil it for you.
The video below is a video press release about the Stellar Awards that was shown at the Forum this morning. In it are some of a number of other shows and events that Central City Productions owns, produces and syndicates. One of the company’s latest ventures is a 24/7 entertainment network.
More material will be added in coming days about tickets, events, and ways for Charlotte businesses to express interest in partnering in some way with Central City Productions.
Presenters were Jackson, founder and CEO; Ray Sams, marketing and sales director; and two members of the Charlotte Host Committee, City Council member Malcolm Graham, and Monica Bacon, a gospel music veteran, 2025 inductee into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and recent transplant to Charlotte.
– Steve Johnston