BILLY McGUIGAN: Pop Rocketeer

Creativity in Captivity

Billy McGuigan is the creator director of several internationally touring shows including Rave On! The Buddy Holly Experience, Yesterday and Today: The Interactive Beatles Experience, and Billy McGuigan’s Pop Rock Orchestra. Career highlights include performing with Buddy Holly’s contemporaries Tommy Allsup and Sonny West and headlining Las Vegas with Yesterday and Today: The Interactive Beatles Experience. Billy’s love of music comes directly from his father who introduced Billy to The Beatles’ music at an early age. With an out of tune guitar and tattered Beatles chord book, Billy, his brothers and dad spent countless hours at the dining room table learning and crafting Beatles songs. Shortly after Billy’s dad lost a battle with leukemia in 1996 at age 42, the McGuigan brothers turned to the music their Dad taught them as kids to help deal with the loss of their father. Not only did they find healing in the music, but it led to the creation of Rave On Productions, whose mission is to create live concert experiences with the sole purpose of connecting an audience together through memories and music. Billy was recently inducted into the Nebraska Music Hall of Fame and has won the Spotlight Award for Best Actor in a Musical, an Omaha Entertainment and Arts Award, and the Midland Business Journal’s 40 under 40 award, as well as a CPAC Alumni Award for Excellence in Public Service from the Faculty and Staff at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. In 2021, Billy opened the McGuigan Arts Academy, providing year-round classes, camps and lessons dedicated to teaching life skills through the arts.