Photo courtesy Georgia Music Hall of Fame.

The Georgia Music Hall of Fame was already on the ever-growing list of attractions, cultural venues and community centers to cut back, and now there’s this: it might close at the end of 2009 if it can’t raise $225,000 by Oct 27.

Friday’s AJC story said the Hall of Fame authority met Thursday in Atlanta to address cuts in state funding and earned income. Already, full-time staff has been reduced, furloughs implemented and hours cut. That $225,000 is the minimum it needs to remain open. (9:40 p.m.: An updated AJC story, including Macon and museum officials.)

A Nov. 2008 report* from the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts shows the museum relies on state funding for about 75 percent of its annual budget. In 2008, it brought in about $277,000 on its own, and spent about $1.5 million. Plainly: the state can’t afford to cover it anymore.

The Hall of Fame had been inducting artists since 1979, but state leaders pegged Macon for the Hall of Fame museum in 1989, sensing that Atlanta had too many competing attractions. Macon donated land for it, and the state Legislature allocated $6.5 million for the project — “a multimillion dollar gamble,” the AJC called it at the time. It opened in September, 1996 and Macon responded with more downtown development projects, convention facilities and the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, which opened in 1999. Even now, the Music Hall of Fame has a $1.4 million economic impact on Bibb County, and the state report says 97 percent of people who visited enjoyed the experience.

So where’s the gamble? From a 1996 AJC story:

To break even, the Music Hall of Fame needs 272,000 visitors to spend $1.6 million per year.

Early consulting reports indicated that 175,000 to 375,000 people will visit each year, but the higher figure depends upon the success of the sports hall and other projects.

The Alabama Music Hall of Fame, which opened in 1989 in Tuscumbia, gets about 50,000 visitors a year.

The Georgia Music Hall of Fame’s break-even attendance is close to the annual number of visitors drawn yearly to the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, which opened in 1967 and is considered a model of its kind.

Last year, the Hall of Fame drew about 27,000 visitors, a pretty typical number for the last five years.

The audit says the Hall of Fame would have to draw 140,000 people per year by 2012 to become self-sustaining.

Part of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame's "cityscape," when it opened in 1996. AJC file photo.

As an attraction, it has expanded, adding components for children and continuing to celebrate musicians and artists. The 2008 inductees were Dinah and Fred Gretsch, Dottie Rambo, Hamp Swain, Keith Sweat, Ludacris and Widespread Panic. It has more than 30,000 artifacts, and just today, they’re putting finishing touches on a new exhibition, “Johnny Mercer: Too Marvelous for Words,” planned to open Saturday and be on display through June, 2010.

The museum also has continued to tour exhibits around the state. Currently, Hall of Fame exhibition “Our Music is Georgia Music” is on display at Stone Mountain Park’s Memorial Hall. It features nearly 40 artifacts, including Little Richard’s scarlet, sequined boots, Robert Shaw’s baton and Brenda Lee’s hand-printed lyrics to “I’m Sorry.” The exhibition also includes a 20-minute film, “Home Grown and World Known.”

Want to go? “Our Music is Georgia Music,” on display through Sept. 7. Stone Mountain Park’s Memorial Hall, 1000 Robert E. Lee Drive, Stone Mountain. $9 for adults, $7 for people ages 3-11, admission included in one-day Adventure Pass and Mountain Membership. (770) 413-5086, www.stonemountainpark.com

Georgia Music Hall of Fame, 200 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Macon. 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesdays-Saturdays. $8 for adults, $6 for seniors, military and college students, $3.50 for people ages 4-17, free for children 3 and younger. (478) 751-3334, www.georgiamusic.org

* I could only get the report to open in Google Reader, but the numbers are jarring. Give it a look, if you can.

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