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Nonprofit foundation Live Music Society has announced the recipients of its second annual Music in Action grant.
The Music In Action grant provides funding for venues to program events that build community and promote accessibility for marginalized groups, create opportunities for both local talent and touring acts to grow and find new audiences, and increase their revenue and customer base. The number of small music venues benefitting from the program is up from 17 in 2023, while the funds have grown from $500,000 last year to $710,000 this year.
This year, 24 small performance venues across the United States have been granted a total of $710,000 to program events that build community and boost revenue. The 24 venue grantees include Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans, Nocturne Jazz & Supper Club in Denver, Cole’s Bar in Chicago, Drkmtter Collective in Nashville, The Lost Church in San Francisco, The Royal Room in Seattle and Chris’ Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia.
The 2024 recipients will use their funds over the next year to launch concert series, put on family-friendly festivals, build out membership programs, develop spaces for LGBTQ+ musicians to gather, create educational programming and host monthly Latinx dance parties.
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“People are trying to open their stages to new voices: women, BIPOC, LGBTQ and even just different styles of music that they are not used to presenting,” says Live Music Society executive director Cat Henry. “It’s really exciting for people to take a philosophical risk to make sure that they’re not just staying in one lane the whole time and providing opportunities for more voices at the table.”
For Live Music Society founder Pete Muller, the Music In Action grant is about giving people who love and know their business the ability to take a swing at something new and help build a more sustainable business for the long term. “If you have a 200-seat venue, you are not going to make a lot of money. Even if you run it well. The best shot you have is to figure out how to raise a lot of philanthropic local dollars,” says Muller. “Most of the time, it’s going to be shoestring and we can help.”
While Live Music Society does not intend to fully fund any venues, Muller says the nonprofit created the grant for them to take risks on new musicians, pay their musicians and staff reasonable wages and remain an integral part of the live music ecosystem.
“200-seat venues or 100-seat venues are an amazing place to start your musical career,” says Muller, who is also a touring musician. “I actually prefer smaller venues. You can really connect with the crowd. The only problem is, it’s very hard to make a good living.”
Live Music Society, which began handing out grants in 2020, hopes to continue growing the number of venues that receive funding through the Music In Action grant, with the amount of funds reflecting the need. With the 2024 Music In Action grant and its annual Toolbox grant, the foundation has now disbursed $3.7 million in funding to small venues.
To further its mission to recognize and protect small venues and listening rooms across the United States, Live Music Society is also looking to help venues by developing and sharing best practices. In partnership with its venue grantees and involvement with organizations like the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) — Live Music Society will host a panel at this year’s NIVA conference in June — the foundation plans to collect expertise that it can share with small venues to help them succeed in a tough live music economy.
“One of the goals of gathering in New Orleans [for NIVA ‘24] is to help create an informal network of companies and club owners because they aren’t really competing with each other. They are in different markets,” Muller says. “If one of them finds a great musician, sharing it with a different club is helpful to both. The more you interact, the more you create community.”
Full list of 2024 Music In Action grantees:
118 North – Wayne, PAB Side Lounge – Cleveland Heights, OHBlue Jay Listening Room – Jacksonville Beach, FLBossa Bistro – Washington, D.C.Chris’ Jazz Cafe – Philadelphia, PACole’s Bar – Chicago, ILDevil’s Backbone Tavern – Fischer, TXDrkmttr Collective – Nashville, TNFogartyville Community Media and Arts Center – Sarasota, FLGrand Annex Music Hall – San Pedro, CAJilly’s Music Room – Akron, OHLa Peña Cultural Center – Berkeley, CAMaple Leaf Bar – New Orleans, LAMOTR Pub – Cincinnati, OHNocturne Jazz & Supper Club – Denver, COOne Longfellow Square – Portland, MERebel Rebel Studio & Lounge – Berea, KYRoots Music Project – Boulder, COThe Acorn Center for the Performing Arts – Three Oaks, MIThe Jalopy Theatre – Brooklyn, NYThe Lost Church – San Francisco, CAThe Parlor Room – Northampton, MAThe Royal Room – Seattle, WAThe Spot on Kirk – Roanoke, VA
Nine months before Live Nation made the headline-grabbing decision to cut merch fees at 77 of its clubs and theaters across the country, Ineffable Music Group did it first. Now, the company’s CEO, Thomas Cussins, has a piece of advice for other independent venue owners and operators concerned that the concert giant is using this tactic to curry favor with artists and agents and squeeze out their businesses: Everything will be OK.
“Merch money is not what is going to keep us in business,” says Cussins, whose company oversees 10 venues across California, including The Catalyst Club in Santa Cruz, the Ventura Music Hall in Ventura and the Golden State Theatre in Monterey. “What causes independent venues to go out of business is the one in 10 shows where venues pay way too much relative to the draw and end up losing everything they made on the previous nine shows.”
Cussins made the decision to stop charging acts performing at his venues a cut of their merch sales — a standard industry practice — while watching a Jan. 24 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about Ticketmaster. Cussins says it was members of the band Lawrence’s testimony about how much bands rely on merch money for touring that moved him to change the company’s policy: “It is money that most directly gets into the band’s pocket and the idea that we were taking away from that did not sit right with me.”
Since then, he says the decision has not hurt his business “at all.”
Still, independent venues remain concerned about what Live Nation’s new “On the Road Again” program will mean for them — how can they compete with the deals Live Nation is offering? The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) released a statement on Wednesday (Sept. 27) following the news, saying, “Temporary measures may appear to help artists in the short run but actually can squeeze out independent venues which provide the lifeblood of many artists on thin margins.”
Thomas Cussins
Daniel Swan
The statement continued, “The initiative announced yesterday may seem like a move to follow the lead of some independent venues. It is not that. Instead, it appears to be a calculated attempt to use a publicly-traded conglomerate’s immeasurable resources to divert artists from independent venues and further consolidate control over the live entertainment sector. Such tactics threaten the vitality of small and medium-sized venues under 3,000 capacity, many of which still struggle to keep their doors open.”
A NIVA member since 2020, Cussins says he understands why some NIVA members may be upset that Live Nation’s policy might put pressure on their businesses. But, he adds, eliminating merch fees is a net positive for the entire live music ecosystem — one where everyone is benefiting.
“It’s difficult to operate a single venue in a market against Live Nation,” says Cussins. “Venues are low-margin businesses. I’m not here to say that no one should charge merch fees. What I am here to say is that it is my opinion that if you waive those fees, it is an overall healthier ecosystem and you will actually do better in business because you are doing something that makes the process easier.”
What was your reaction when you heard the news that Live Nation was going to waive merch fees for artists?
I was ecstatic. It’s something I’m very passionate about because it fosters a healthier concert ecosystem.
Were you worried about the financial hit Ineffable would take when you decided to eliminate merch fees at Ineffable venues?
No, because merch money is not what is going to keep us in business. What causes independent venues to go out of business is the one in 10 shows where venues pay way too much relative to the draw and end up losing everything they made on the previous nine shows. I think it’s more productive spending one’s time fostering a healthier ecosystem where everybody has a chance to make money. To me, that means not taking artists’ merch money and artists taking more door deals, where the artist has an opportunity to make the most money.
But is that realistic? For many artists, taking a door deal with no guarantee is too risky.
Correct. Some can’t take that risk. But many other artists understand they can make more money on a door deal and lower the risk the venue faces. For independent venues to be healthy, we need volume, which means we need bands to be healthy and touring and making enough money to support themselves. And the money made from merch most directly affects their ability to be out on the road and do well.
What is your reaction to the statement NIVA issued, saying the On the Road Again program is just an attempt to squeeze out indie venues?
They’re doing what they think is in the best interests of their members. We’re members of NIVA and they have done an incredible job for our business. I’m a huge fan. But my take is that merch money is not what’s going to keep these independent venues in business. What’s going to keep them in business is a healthy concert ecosystem, where we’re keeping the bands healthy and keeping them on the road with deals that are fair so that everyone can make a few bucks and eat at the table together and nobody is gouging the other person.
What is the biggest challenge facing artists on the road right now?
It is the travel costs — the price of gas, vehicle rentals, the price to pay crews. If you are going out there and you are doing the same business and your costs have increased 30%, how can you possibly make that up? You might just not tour. I know a lot of bands that have told me they were doing 80 dates a year and now they just want to do 40. They just want to pick the 40 best markets. That hurts independent small businesses. I’m seeing that firsthand. Artists that are in the prime of their career saying, “I want to work less, but each one has more meaning.” And I can’t blame them. But if they can do a longer tour and amortize those costs and play those small secondary markets, then I can be their partner on the ground in markets where I operate venues and keep my hands out of their merch money.
What advice do you have to other venues considering dropping their merch fees?
It’s not one-size-fits-all and it might not be the right solution for everyone. But I am so happy that we made that move — not only from an ethos standpoint, financially as well. It has not hurt me at all.
Non-profit foundation Live Music Society has announced the first recipients of the Music in Action grant program, which provides anywhere from $10,000-$50,000 to small venues. For 2023, 17 venues with a maximum capacity of 300 were provided with a total of $500,000 to develop and implement creative ideas to engage their communities, expand audiences, and generate new revenue sources. This year’s recipients include The Rebel Lounge in Arizona, Sunset Tavern in Washington, Happy Dog in Ohio, Café Coda in Wisconsin and more.
Since the start of the global pandemic in 2020, Live Music Society has provided $3 million in grants to small music venues. The first three rounds of funding were aimed at providing pandemic relief, but the new grant program, Music in Action, is pivoting to help venues succeed and not just survive.
Live Music Society founder Pete Muller — who is also a touring musician — tells Billboard that the foundation understands that the economics for these small venues are difficult and the profit margins can be razor thin, even in non-pandemic years. Small venue owners, he believes, know their community and know the best ways to engage locals and bring people back to their rooms. This year’s ideas included The Stone Church in Vermont continuing their GRRLS 2 The Front program which dedicates the month of March to women and nonbinary-led groups and offers a stage management/sound engineering course. The Elastic Arts Foundation in Illinois will revive their Dark Matter performance series and enhance the AfroFuturist Weekend festival showcasing emerging and established Black artists across different neighborhoods of Chicago’s South and West Sides. Cafe CODA in Wisconsin will expand their COOL SCHOOL program, providing free music education activities and introducing a mobile stage for increased accessibility.
“We’re saying, ‘give us your idea and we will mitigate that risk by giving you money to do it,’ That’s what the grant is,” says Muller. “Hopefully that allows them to do something that’s inspiring and helps the club, but also inspires other places…. It’s seed money. Our return is not cash, it’s creating energy in this ecosystem.”
Funds for the grants come from Muller and other supporters. Live Music Society’s board selected the 17 venues and their programs out of more than 100 applications this year, focusing on ideas that champion historically marginalized groups such as BIPOC, Latinx, LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities.
Music in Action is about trusting that music venue owners know what they need to flourish, says Live Music Society executive director Cat Henry, adding “asking [venue owners] was important, not telling them.”
“One of the biggest things we’ve heard from venue owners is that this is unique. There’s not really a lot of funding opportunities, especially for for-profit [businesses],” says Henry. “It changes the way they think about things knowing that somebody cares about this, that there’s an advocate out there that is looking out for the sector as a whole.”
Live Music Society has also teamed up with trade association National Independent Venue Association for the second annual National Independent Venue Association conference set to take place in July in Washington, D.C. Live Music Society will do an introduction to their grantees at the NIVA ‘23 Independent Awards Gala, a panel discussion with key stakeholders from the small venue community and sponsorship of a Salute to Small Venues concert at Pie Shop. Additionally, they will provide a networking space called the Live Music Society Cantina, located across from The Anthem, the main venue hosting conference programming.
Check out a full list of 2023 Music in Action grantees below.
The 2023 Music In Action Grant Recipients:
Big Room Bar, Columbus, OH
Cafe Coda, Madison, WI
Caffé Lena, Saratoga Springs, NY
Chocolate Church Arts Center, Bath, ME
Club Passim, Cambridge, MA
Dazzle, Denver, CO
Drom, New York, NY
Elastic Arts Foundation, Chicago, IL
Happy Dog, Cleveland, OH
Hey Nonny, Arlington Heights, IL
Ivy Room, Albany, CA
Stone Church, Brattleboro, VT
Sunset Tavern, Seattle, WA
TAC Temescal Art Center, Oakland, CA
The Muse Performance Space, Lafayette, CO
The Parlour, Providence, RI
The Rebel Lounge, Phoenix, AZ
Independent Brooklyn venue Elsewhere is taking a new approach to ticket buying for loyal patrons. Starting today, the multi-room venue is widely launching its membership program, which ranges from $2 to $30 a month and provides tiered benefits including free entry to shows, access to the venue’s Discord and new music discovery.
Freaks With Benefits, the cheapest tier at $2 a month, provides free coat check, the ability to skip the line and access to the venue’s member-exclusive Discord channels, along with other perks. Sonic Explorer — which costs $6 a month — provides half off an unlimited number of tickets for the member and a guest, plus the perks from Freaks With Benefits. For $30 a month, the Patron Saint membership provides free entry to shows and parties, half-off tickets for a guest, reserved tickets for sold-out shows, free merch and all other previously mentioned tier benefits.
The “unlimited” free or discounted entry included in the two higher-priced tiers does come with an asterisk: Members must make a reservation in advance to reserve those tickets and are subject to “space permitting.” The reservation option is built into the backend of Elsewhere’s website and allows members to reserve up to eight events at a time. The venue has been beta testing the membership program since November — 600 people applied for the first 50 slots in just 48 hours — says Elsewhere co-founder Jake Rosenthal. “A big part of testing it was really about figuring out what is this special math where enough people feel like they’re getting enough access or that it feels very valuable,” he says. The limited reservations help members prioritize shows and keep them from “parking” on any and every show, which Rosenthal says wouldn’t be sustainable.
“There’s no limit to the number of events you can go to discounted or free,” Rosenthal explains, “There’s only the fact that like, if there’s an event several months out that you want to unequivocally park a reservation on, then you have to spend one of your reservations. But if you want to go to Elsewhere every night [without a reservation], you could do that unlimitedly for forever.”
The new program helps drive more customers to the venue, which means more artist discovery, more bar and merch sales and better-attended shows, says Rosenthal. While the price reduction on tickets for members means less money for the artists if shows sell out (roughly 15% of shows meet this criterion, according to Rosenthal), the venue only holds a small percentage of the room for membership reservations and artists are made aware of the program in their contracts.
“For 85% of our events, the incentive of the artist and Elsewhere is quite aligned,” says Rosenthal. The idea is, “How can we incentivize people to show up to those events that they otherwise probably would not have come to because they’re unfamiliar with the artist, for example. Another reason could be that $30 was too much to check something out that they’re on the fence about.”
As Rosenthal puts it, the membership program is less a money-making venture — or about providing velvet-rope treatment to VIPs — than it is about building community. That’s a longstanding goal for he and Elsewhere co-founders Dhruv Chopra and Rami Haykal-Manning, who have been tied to the DIY underground music scene in Brooklyn for years; the three ran the venue Glasslands Gallery in Williamsburg before it closed in 2015 and opened Elsewhere, which hosts upwards of 600 shows per year, in 2017. The memberships are also a way to acknowledge the price pressure that many are facing in New York and around the world.
“If you’re someone who is coming to Elsewhere once a month, twice a month or up, you’re already doing your part supporting the music scene in our community and you shouldn’t have to spend $30 five or six times a month to be at Elsewhere,” says Rosenthal. “It’s built with that ethos first, which is connecting our community more tightly and making it cheaper to come more often.”
The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) will host its latest conference this July in Washington, D.C.
The association — which successfully lobbied for the $16.25 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) for indie venues struggling through the pandemic — will bring together its members from July 10-12. The inaugural NIVA Conference was held last year in Cleveland with more than 650 members in attendance.
The 2023 edition will focus on topics including industry diversity, mental health, safety, insurance, the economic impact of live entertainment, booking, artist development, ticketing and the role of live entertainment in policymaking. NIVA ‘23 will also give members the opportunity to engage with the organization’s federal and national partners on Capitol Hill, in the Biden administration and throughout the D.C. region.
“In welcoming the NIVA conference to the District, we look forward to showcasing the independent venues and creatives who keep D.C. the capital of creativity,” said Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser in a release. “And we have a lot to be proud of — from our vibrant Go Go scene, to the venues that have hosted and built generations of music fans, to the festivals that bring Washingtonians together year after year. D.C. residents love going to festivals and shows and supporting artists, and we know the important role our creative community will continue to play in D.C. ‘s comeback. We look forward to bringing NIVA members and industry experts together in D.C., and we’ll see you in July.”
In addition to a full slate of programming, organizers promise live performances, a pre-party on July 9 and an awards gala July 10 at independent venue The Anthem that will celebrate live entertainment’s contribution to the nation. Events will take place at multiple NIVA music and comedy venues across Washington, D.C. During the evenings, attendees can take advantage of concerts and performances happening every night of the conference as NIVA ‘23 coincides with National Independent Venue Week, making D.C. the epicenter of independent live music in the country the week of July 10.
“Thousands of music and comedy venues across the country spent 2020 and 2021 focused on making the case to Washington D.C. policymakers that small businesses in live entertainment needed help to prevent the permanent loss of stages in every community, and NIVA’s efforts led to the largest arts investment in U.S. history,” said NIVA’s recently appointed executive director Stephen Parker in a release. “This summer, the nation’s music and comedy community will return to D.C. to illustrate why the partnership between government and the independent live entertainment industry must continue beyond the pandemic, to forge the future for independent music and comedy venues, festivals and promoters and to demonstrate their place in America’s culture and economy.”
NIVA is partnering with the following member venues and festivals to bring the 2023 conference to Washington, D.C.: All Things Go, Black Cat, DC Improv, DC9 Nightclub, Down in the Reeds Festival, I.M.P. (The Anthem, 9:30 Club and Lincoln Theatre), Listen Local First D.C., National Cannabis Festival, Pearl Street Warehouse, Rhizome, Songbyrd Music House, The Hamilton, The Pie Shop, The Pocket, U Street Music Hall Presents and Union Stage.
Further details on the conference’s programming and speakers will be announced at a later date. Registration information can be found here.
DENVER — Tennyson’s Tap was the kind of music club where, on packed nights, the lone frazzled employee serving drinks, running sound and manning the door might ask one of the bands to help out and collect the $5 cover charge. I know because I sang in one of those bands, Smaldone Faces, and our bassist Luke and I pretty much let everyone in for free.
The Tap, at 4335 W. 38th St. in Denver, specialized in whiskey and scruffy musicians of every conceivable genre — my two bands that played there did country, punk and metal covers, and we opened for screamo indie-rockers, jazzy improvisationalists and dreadlocked funk-and-reggae combos. The bar smelled like cigarettes and beer, and had a capacity of about 90, but when we drew our crowds of 20 or 30 people, it roared like Springsteen at the Roxy.
“It’s one of those places where everybody’s right in your face. You don’t just hear the music, you feel it,” says singer and guitarist Aaron Garcia, whose Denver band 78 Bombs played its first gig there. “It’s so comfortable, it’s like an old shoe — an old Chuck Taylor.”
A few weeks ago, I drove by the Tap and the beige-colored, shack-like building was now a pile of collapsed lumber and cinder blocks as tall as the nearby telephone poles. The band I’m currently in, Sid Delicious, played its last gig at the Tap on March 6, 2020, and we soothed our small crowd that was feeling nervous about COVID-19 through the healing power of the MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams.” Cody, the big-bearded sound guy, had assured us that, just as 9/11 had brought people together, live music would never die, and offered plenty of hand san.
The bar closed a week or so later, and remained that way. “LOVE,” read the marquee. Eventually, somebody painted “Thank you!” on the wall outside.
Through quarantine, Fauci, Trump, vaccines, anti-vaxxers and the triumphant return of live music, I drove by, waiting for the band names to reappear on the marquee. But the Tap, like B.L.U.E.S. On Halsted in Chicago, the Satellite in Los Angeles and, this year, Exit/In in Nashville, couldn’t make it — despite the Small Business Administration’s multimillion-dollar grants to thousands of music venues forced to temporarily shut down during the pandemic.
According to the National Independent Venue Association, more than 25 U.S. clubs have permanently closed in 2022.
“For a whole year, I kept that place open and legal and ready to open the doors,” says Dave Fox, one of the club’s co-owners, who also ran a recording studio as part of the same corner complex. “But it was really the landlord’s decision to not proceed with the corner.”
The neighborhood surrounding Tennyson’s Tap is a long-since-gentrified portion of Northwest Denver known as Berkeley, and over the past 20 years, condos and coffee shops have replaced the old hardware store, the family-owned window-repair business and the music shop that used to repair my keyboard after I banged the “E” key too heavily during the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” The previous, longtime property owner suggested to Fox he could keep paying the Tap’s lease, but, according to Fox, new owners went in another direction last year.
(Representatives for the property, listed with the Colorado Secretary of State, did not respond to calls and e-mails about what they might do with the site of the former Tennyson’s Tap.)
In January 2011, Fox and a partner opened the Tap and began booking music. The odd national touring name played there, like metal-and-bodybuilding star Thor, but the club showcased mostly local artists, as many as five per night. A bartender, Cat Ackermann, was also a musician, and inaugurated a karaoke night; Leonard Apodaca, one of the club’s managers, had the idea to merge Taco Tuesdays and dance music, and it became a high-grossing, heavy-drinking success; the bar’s lack of genre discernment drew metal, ska, funk, jazz, reggae and, yes, punk-and-metal cover bands.
“We found the underlying grit in the DJ scene,” says Apodaca, who indulged me when I showed up at the bar on Tuesday afternoons to beg for new gigs, sometimes after we managed only 15 or 20 people at the previous ones. “All those people are used to going to clubs and paying a big cover. One night a week, they didn’t have to get all dressed up, they didn’t have to worry about going downtown. They can just be themselves. The girls would come out in sweatpants and backwards baseball caps.”
Sid Delicious hasn’t played a gig since that March 2020 night at Tennyson’s. A couple of our members were dedicated quarantiners and were reluctant to expose their young kids until they were eligible for vaccines. Then, last summer, we booked a date, but it was on a difficult night, in an inconvenient part of town, and, unlike band-friendly Tennyson’s, required us to rent our own PA, haul it in, figure out how to set it up and sound-check it ourselves.
We eventually canceled the gig. We’re figuring out how to move forward, but the band is adrift without the perfect venue, one like Tennyson’s Tap, where you could rock an hour long set on a tiny stage, closing with Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades,” after which Cody would hand you an envelope containing one or two crisp $100 bills. Of all the things we lost during the pandemic, a dingy old club with a back room for darts was not the most consequential.
Or, maybe, it was.
“It was just a community,” Apodaca says. “It’s all basically dirt now.”
What remains of the site of Tennyson’s Tap in Denver.
Steve Knopper
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