Touring
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A new venue in Brooklyn is set to bring large-scale cultural events to an industrial area of the city.
Announced Tuesday (May 21), Brooklyn Storehouse is a 104,000-square-foot warehouse that’s been taken over as a venue for culture-spanning programming involving fashion, art, music and more — with an emphasis on electronic events.
Brooklyn Storehouse is a partnership between two longstanding independent promoters: New York City‘s TCE Presents, the parent company of event producer Teksupport, which was founded by Rob Toma and has produced electronic music events in pop-up (and often industrial) spaces around the city since 2010, and Broadwick Live. Founded by Simeon Aldred in 2010, Broadwick Live is a U.K. live events company that operates 30 venues and event spaces including Drumsheds and the former Printworks London. Housed in a former Ikea and a converted newspaper printing facility, respectively, Drumsheds and the now-defunct Printworks London fit squarely into Broadwick Live’s focus on repurposing industrial buildings.
Together, TCE Presents and Broadwick Live have leased the Brooklyn Storehouse from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, with the warehouse space existing amid a 300-acre industrial waterfront complex. The building was first used for shipbuilding during World War I and II, and its structure maintains its original industrial aesthetic. Much of the Navy Yard is currently being developed for industrial use by clean energy and climate solutions companies. As such, it’s unlikely that the area will be built out with housing units, allowing Brooklyn Storehouse more leeway when producing live (and often late-night) events.
“One of the problems we have in the U.K. is that nearly every space we open, two years later someone’s building condos right on our back door, and it becomes a constant pressure,” says Aldred. “One of the things that’s very attractive about the Navy Yard is that it’s protected for jobs, and it’s going to be like that for a long time.”
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The founders — who launched the endeavor with “50/50 our own money,” says Aldred — soft-launched Brooklyn Storehouse last September with a fashion show by Ralph Lauren. The venue can host a maximum of 7,000 people.
Brooklyn Storehouse
Phillip Reed
The partnership brings Toma and his team’s strengths— “promotions, marketing, bookings, licensing, opening doors, breaking down operations, community outreach” says Toma — along with the company’s ability to, Aldred says “immediately supercharge this [space] with 30 to 40 shows.” Over the next few months, Brooklyn Storehouse is set to host performances from Justice, Charlotte de Witte, Dom Dolla, John Summit, Swedish House Mafia, Alesso, James Hype and Meduza and four parties from Ibiza-based party brand CircoLoco later this year.
Toma adds that a lot of those artists are “coming to us because we don’t only focus on selling tickets on the dance floor. They know the spaces we do are involved with fashion [and other cultural programming], and they know this is that.” Toma also says artists are drawn to performing shows in special locations, with Brooklyn Storehouse thus offering “an advantage over our competitors.”
Toma adds that the key to making the space work is “the balance of not only having programming in terms of cold hard tickets. It’s more about figuring out how to position it in a way where we’re also bringing in several different industries, from film to fashion.” The founders hope it can be a space where orchestras, musicians and other groups can set up extended creative residencies. It will be also used for corporate gatherings.
Brooklyn Storehouse is the first of several venues Broadwick Live and TCE Presents plan to operate in the United States, with the partners also currently looking at former industrial spaces in Boston, Miami, Los Angeles and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
“In America at the moment we’ve got 25 to 30 [conversations ongoing],” says Aldred. “Five to 10 of those are in the money part of the talk, so they’re becoming quite real.”
In these industrial spaces, the partners see a particularly timely expansion opportunity, with Aldred predicting that many such facilities will open up as the power grid converts to clean energy.
“These spaces were used for kind of dirty work,” he says. “In the next 5 to 10 years, you’re gonna see them coming offline from being dirty and developers not knowing what to do with them. You’re not going to bulldoze a hundred-year-old power station with amazing architecture. It’s not easy to put retail in them. It’s not easy to put housing into them.”
But as is the hope with Brooklyn Storehouse, parties, fashion shows and DJ sets will be just the right fit.
Live entertainment executive Jason Miller is leaving operational responsibilities at ELA, the joint venture he launched with global entertainment leader CTS Eventim in 2021. Miller continues to hold an ownership stake in the concert promotion company. During his nearly three years as CEO, Miller, based in Los Angeles, led ELA to produce shows in all […]
The entire West Coast is back outside thanks to Kendrick Lamar‘s scathing Billboard Hot 100-topping “Not Like Us,” and YG is ready to bring that energy across North America. On Monday (May 20), the “Big Bank” rapper announced his upcoming Just Re’d Up tour, which will kick off on June 28 in his hometown of Los Angeles, and concludes on Aug. 17 in Hawaii.
Assisted by fellow L.A. native DJ Vision and Cleveland rapper Doe Boy — who earned his first unaccompanied Billboard hit with this year’s “Way Too Long” (No. 29 on Rhythmic Airplay) — YG’s Just Re’d Up tour will visit major cities such as Chicago, New York and Houston. YG shared the official tour poster — which features his sunglasses-clad face emblazoned across a $100 bill with a suggestive image of two women mirrored on each sides of the frame — on his official Instagram page. “Let me know what songs yall wanna hear in the [comments],” he captioned the post
In line with recent concert dress codes such as Beyoncé‘s silver cowboy attire, Harry Styles‘ feather boas and Taylor Swift‘s friendship bracelets, YG’s tour poster suggested that “everybody wear black.”
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Ticket presale for the Just Re’d Up tour launched Tuesday (May 21) at 10 a.m. PT, while the Spotify presale commences on Wednesday (May 22) at 10 a.m. PT. General public sale begins Friday (May 24) at 10 a.m. PT; fans can find more tour information on YG’s official 4Hunnid website.
The new tour marks YG’s first headlining trek since 2019’s Stay Dangerous tour, which he launched in support of his 2018 LP of the same name. Stay Dangerous reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200, his third of five consecutive top 10 titles on the ranking. Last year, YG was slated to mount the Str8 to the Klub tour alongside Grammy-nominated rappers Tyga and Saweetie, but those dates were quietly canceled.
The Just Re’d Up tour marks a new era for YG, who recently signed a multi-album deal with BMG under his 4Hunnid Records label. On April 26, he unleashed the blazing, West Coast-indebted “Knocka,” laying the foundation for his forthcoming seventh solo studio album.
In addition to his five Billboard 200 top 10 projects — including 2014’s No. 2-peaking My Krazy Life — YG has earned more than 20 Hot 100 hits, including “Don’t Tell ‘Em” (No. 6, with Jeremih), “My Hitta” (No. 19, with Jeezy and Rich Homie Quan), “Big Bank” (No. 16, with 2 Chainz, Big Sean and Nicki Minaj), “Who Do You Love?” (No. 54, with Drake) and “Toot It And Boot It” (No. 67).
Check out the dates for YG’s Just Re’d Up tour below.
Pavement, James Blake, Kurt Vile, Courtney Barnett and more have been announced as headliners for the 2024 edition of Seattle’s famed Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival held at Seattle Center. Kim Gordon, Freddie Gibbs, Aly & AJ, Cypress Hill and Marc Ribillet will also perform at the 51st edition of the festival, which is set to take place Aug. 31-Sept. 1.
The Labor Day weekend staple returned last year for its 50th anniversary with new production partners the New Rising Sun coalition, in the process bringing back a sense of local identity to the long-standing event.
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Last year’s return “was a huge success,” says McCaw Hall GM Joe Paganelli, who also co-leads New Rising Sun. “We wanted to realign the festival with Seattle’s changing growth, purpose and needs. We dug deep and invested heavily in visual arts and trying to create a spirit of discovery.”
After taking three and a half years off due to COVID-19, the revived festival saw great success last year with Pacific Northwest bands like Sleater-Kinney, Band of Horses and Sunny Day Real Estate on the bill. This year, organizers dug even deeper into the festival’s roots and brought back talent booker Chris Porter, who previously booked Bumbershoot for 18 years. Paganelli initially reached out to Porter for advice on the 2024 lineup before asking the veteran booker to return.
“I didn’t see it coming but I was very touched and honored,” says Porter, who adds that New Rising Sun was “bringing [the festival] back in the very similar spirit of eclecticism and discovery as we had done in years past, so I wanted to pick up where we left off.”
With a lineup that also includes Badbadnotgood, Chvrches’ Lauren Mayberry, Carl Cox, Lee Fields, St. Paul & the Broken Bones, The Polyphonic Spree, Madison Cunningham and Andrew Bird, Porter focused on two main components to book this year’s festival: discovery and value.
“It’s great if people go to see their favorite bands or artists perform, but hopefully they’re going to find their new favorite band there too,” says Porter. “The only thing I wanted to do a little differently than last year is maybe broaden it a little bit, address some world/global music sounds more and stretch the demographics.”
The full Bumbershoot lineup also includes Acid Tongue, All Them Witches, Angélica Garcia, Automatic, Balthvs, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Corridor, Dean Johnson, Disq, Emi Pop, Flesh Produce, George Clanton, Gold Chisme, Grynch, Helado Negro, Hurray for the Riff Raff, I Dont Know How But They Found Me, k.flay, Kassa Overall, King Buffalo, Kultur Shock, Ladytron, Lemon Boy, Linda from Work, Lol Tolhurst x Budgie, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Mercury Rev, Moor Mother, NAVVI, Neal Francis, Oh, Rose, Parisalexa, Pink Siifu, Pom Pom Squad, Psymon Spine, Pure Bathing Culture, R E P O S A D O, Rocket, Spoon Benders, Squirrel Flower, Stephanie Anne Johnson, Sux, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, TEKE::TEKE, The Divorce, The Groovy Nobody, Thee Sacred Souls, TK & The Holy Know-Nothings, Tres Leches and Warren Dunes.
“We’re lucky to work in Seattle and doing this [festival] in this area. The community is very open-minded and open to discovering different sounds and different art,” says Porter. “It is really rewarding and I hope people like what we did this year.”
In addition to music, Bumbershoot will continue with its renowned visual arts component. The festival is reinforcing its commitment to the regional community with the return of fan favorites like the Fashion District, the Out of Sight exhibit and a film program while also introducing new programming including a unique partnership with NASA, a Bigfoot deepfake animation competition and more.
Additionally, the Century 21 District at the Pacific Science Center will feature a “Sculpture Parking Lot” featuring large-scale contemporary sculpture. “Songs for Space,” in partnership with NASA, will project James Webb Space Telescope images in the PACCAR IMAX theater alongside a range of different vocal groups, including gospel, opera and Gregorian chant.
The Recess District will present the art of performance with rollerskating, gymnastics, breakdancing, double-dutch jump rope and cheerleading as well as a skateboard competition and a wrestling showcase called Bumbermania!
New Rising Sun’s commitment to Bumbershoot is only in its second year, and Paganelli says growing the festival’s presence is a priority going forward. “We’re going to supercharge and expand the Bumbershoot brand with new and different opportunities throughout the year, which includes a brick-and-mortar venue that will harken back to Andy Warhol’s Factory,” he says. “Then there will be additional programming verticals coming out that we’re not prepared just yet to release but are in the planning process already.”
Tickets for the 2024 Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival are on sale now. Head here to check out the full lineup along with the festival’s culinary and visual arts programming.
Over two decades since 50 Cent strapped on his bullet-proof vest and dropped his iconic Get Rich or Die Tryin’ debut, the G-Unit boss is still making history. According to Billboard Boxscore, 50’s The Final Lap Tour has eclipsed $100 million in earnings, making him only the second rapper to ever surpass that mark. The […]
Events that prevented Rachel Dangermond from properly reopening 100 Men Hall, where Ray Charles, B.B. King and Etta James once performed, in the beach town of Bay St. Louis, Miss., over the past six years: Flood. Hurricane. Pandemic. Hurricane. Tornado.
“It is very much spit and glue,” Dangermond says. “Venues are hard.”
Dangermond, a 65-year-old journalist, has spent that time turning the 400-capacity Black-history landmark in a one-story house with blue front steps into a community center. On the hall’s schedule this year: a Saturday-morning writers’ group; a drag brunch; “cigars under the stars”; a performance by bluesman Cedric Burnside; two battling harmonica players known as Harps On Fire; and a festival celebrating the late New Orleans pianist James Booker. Dangermond’s goal is to “keep this juke joint with its historic value open and continue to keep its sacred act of playing music.” She adds: “I’m no longer the owner. I’m more the facilitator of the story of this place.”
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100 Men Hall didn’t start as a hall at all — it began in 1894 as an African-American co-op in which 12 founding members pledged to help each other pay medical and burial expenses. As it grew, the club evolved into the Hundred Members Debating Benevolent Association (DBA), a community support group during Jim Crow and segregation, which, according to Scott Barretta, a University of Mississippi sociology instructor, “helped elevate people into the economy and provide them with social benefits and respectability, where otherwise they were being persecuted.”
In 1922, the DBA built the hall as a meeting space — a worn wooden pediment marked “100 MEN D.B.A.,” recreated based on the original, is at the top of the building — and it soon evolved into a venue for live events. At first, these were plays, wedding showers, Mardi Gras balls and drag shows. By the ’30s, the club became a stop on the Chitlin Circuit, a network of American clubs catering to Black audiences that helped make stars of acts from Billie Holiday to the Jackson 5. “It’s like going back into the past,” says James Keating, a retired physician who publishes the newsletter for the Hancock County Historical Society, of the hall. “It looks like a place that music is performed.”
In 2018, Dangermond was “in a mood” when she found herself in Bay St. Louis, about an hour’s drive from New Orleans and a sort of unofficial suburb with a population of roughly 10,000. She had just lost two promising job prospects, including one as a spokesperson for the New Orleans police chief, and was staying with a friend when someone texted her that 100 Men Hall was available for sale — for $389,000, according to Zillow — including an attached apartment that a previous owner had built. (The value of the property today is nearly $670,000.)
Skeptically, Dangermond and her adopted son, then 9, showed up in bathing suits (they’d been swimming) to the property. “It was just a whim,” Dangermond recalls. “I had this sort of divine clarity. I walked through the door. There was nothing on the walls. It was just a vibe.
“Next thing I know, I was closing.”
Then came the unpleasant surprises. First was a notice that the State of Mississippi had revoked the club’s nonprofit status, and Dangermond had to sign a consent agreement to resurrect it and pay a fine. She had to wait out the bureaucratic process for nonprofit status because without itm the club could not sell liquor at public events. Until she could resolve the issue, she put on political fundraisers and other private events at the hall. This set the table for public concerts by Burnside, the northern Mississippi guitarist, drummer and grandson of the late blues hero R.L. Burnside. “We’re like, ‘Okay, this is going to be great!’ and we’re building, building, building,” Dangermond says. “We get to mid-year, and Hurricane Barry bore down on us. Before that, the rainstorm started flooding the neighborhood. I had an F-150 parked on the street and I looked out and the water was up to the window of the driver’s side. The musicians can’t get here.”
Dangermond and the hall “lost a lot of money,” she says, but they rebounded and booked acts to play every month of 2020 — until the pandemic shut down live music. Like many venues, the hall tinkered with outdoor, masked concerts, but then came Hurricane Zeta and a corresponding tornado that tore the roof off the building, causing $150,000 in damage. Dangermond had sold her New Orleans home to pay for the club, then depleted her savings for the opening, so she relied on insurance and donations to pay for repairs.
“It was like joy and pain,” she says.
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Today, 100 Men Hall puts on events almost daily and breaks even. Blues is a staple and an almost automatic sellout, no matter who’s performing, even as the genre struggles to support clubs throughout the United States. Bay St. Louis locals stop Dangermond at the grocery store and regale her with tales of sneaking in as children to hear Sam Cooke perform. As a ninth grader in 1967, Maurice Singleton learned the swing-out dance from his sister and aired it out during a hall show by soul singer Roscoe Robinson. “It was the first time I went in any building that was dimly lit for a performance,” recalls Singleton, a 71-year-old writer and teacher who lives in town.
Burnside, who performed an outdoor event at the hall just after the tornado literally blew the roof off in 2020, set up his band under a large tree near the “tin house,” a separate structure containing a mural of Etta James, founding Hancock County NAACP president Albert Fairconnetue and others. “It makes me feel real juke-jointy. It was a certain energy about that building,” Burnside says, by phone from a tour stop in Athens, Ga. “It reminded me of a big house party. Everybody [comes] together and drink a little moonshine, have a little food and listen to great music.”
The hall closed in 1982 after the Hundred Members Debating Benevolent Association finally broke up, and the building wound up in the hands of the Disabled Vets of America. In 2005, a couple ran it as an art gallery. Later, a musician and his wife reformed the DBA and scored a state grant to renovate the building, leading to the state historical marker in 2011. Dangermond still can’t articulate the quality of the 100 Men Hall that led her to buy the place. But, she says, “Musicians want to play here, and they hear those voices in the walls. They get up on the stage and they feel it.”
Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s Love Earth Tour, their first trek together in a decade, rolled through New York City’s Forest Hills Stadium on Tuesday (May 14) for the first of two shows at the charming open-air venue.
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Unlike nearly every rock legend from his era, Young doesn’t rely on pyrotechnics, lights or even video screens to captivate an audience. The iconoclastic rocker and his longtime collaborators Crazy Horse — which still includes co-founders Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot — take the stage with nothing but bare-knuckled rock n’ roll (not to mention some of the greatest songs ever written) to knock the crowd on its ass.
“What’s your favorite planet?” Young shouted several times during the show, prompting the fan callback, “Earth!” Perhaps as a gift to one of her most vocal rock n’ roll advocates, Mother Earth provided a bit of visual theatrics for Young and Crazy Horse’s set at the outdoor venue, conjuring up dramatic storm clouds that looked straight out of a J. M. W. Turner painting. Naturally, nothing is a better complement to the tumultuous “Like a Hurricane” than an angry sky.
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Young said the band had rehearsed for 23 days leading up to the tour, and it clearly paid off. Musically, Young and Horse were as simpatico and incendiary as ever, stretching out on auditory odysseys like “Cortez the Killer” and “Powderfinger,” chugging through the blunt thump of “Cinnamon Girl” and feeding off each other during the oil industry takedown “Vampire Blues.” (Speaking of “Cortez,” Young and Crazy Horse’s new release, Dume, is a reworked version of 1975’s Zuma using shelved material from those sessions; Young paid tribute to that album’s producer, the late David Briggs, during the show, saying, “We like to think about him — it centers us a little bit.”)
It’s almost shocking to witness Young, who survived a brain aneurysm in 2005 and turns 79 this year, sounding every bit as ferocious and dexterous on the guitar as he did on recordings from the ‘70s. Close your eyes on the Love Earth Tour and you could almost believe you’re listening to 1979’s Live Rust. Hell, if you open your eyes (and ignore the numerous white-and-grey heads) you could mistake it for that era, too – after all, Young and Crazy Horse are still toting around the same gigantic amps from the Rust Never Sleeps era at each show on this tour.
The rain didn’t put a damper on the evening, but unfortunately, a few sound issues did. During Young’s solo acoustic portion toward the end of the set, the sound cut out entirely during “Human Highway”; when it came back, Young gamely restarted the song, only to have it drop out again. He made the right choice to solider on, bring out the full band and tackle “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” — but unfortunately, the audio issues persisted. As the sound faded in and out on that cataclysmic rocker, it was almost like listening to a vinyl record using a sound system on the fritz; one moment the noise level is pummeling you, the next moment all you can hear is the small sound made from the needle raking over the record’s groove.
Undeterred, Young and Crazy Horse returned for a problem-free encore that gave audiences a crackling “Sedan Delivery” and a cathartic “Rockin’ in the Free World.” It’s been a long time since Neil was young, but with Crazy Horse at his side, you can almost believe him on “Powderfinger” when he sings, “And I just turned 22.”
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
British rock band Elbow was never supposed to be the first act to play Co-op Live — the United Kingdom’s newest and biggest entertainment arena. That honor was originally supposed to go another Greater Manchester local, comic Peter Kay, who grew up in the nearby town of Bolton, and was slated to officially open the 23,500-capacity venue in on April 23.
But construction delays led to the cancellation of Kay’s shows and subsequent gigs for The Black Keys, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Keane, Olivia Rodrigo, as well as a five-night run by Take That. After weeks of false starts, executives with building co-owner and developer Oak View Group — partners on the project with City Football Group (the parent company of Manchester City football club) – insist tonight’s (May 14) long-scheduled Elbow show at Co-op Live will go ahead. Across the live business, executives will be keeping a close eye on how events unfold in Manchester, where the much-hyped project is located.
Billed as a “game-changing” best-in-class new arena facility, Co-op Live has long been positioned as an important international pivot for co-owner Oak View Group, the LA-based arena development company launched by OVG chairman and CEO Tim Leiweke a decade ago. OVG has successfully designed, built and opened more than a dozen successful arenas in the U.S. including Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle and UBS Arena in New York and has a full slate of arena development projects in progress in Brazil, Nigeria, Canada and Wales. The firm has also confirmed that it’s in talks to open a new arena in West London.
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Arena construction is challenging under the most ideal conditions, and delays are common, but the arena’s aggressive opening calendar, with more than a dozen concerts planned in its first month, became a liability and source of embarrassment for the company as the delays worsened.
The first signs of problems became apparent at a press launch and invite-only test concert on April 20, headlined by U.K. acts Everything Everything and Rick Astley. OVG’s Leiweke travelled to England to be at the launch, which was attended by Billboard, and told guests of his extreme pride at what OVG and its partners had built in Manchester, which he enthusiastically called “one of the greatest cities on the face of the Earth.”
Foreshadowing some of the issues that were soon to follow, Leiweke urged those present to be patient as his team hosted an audience inside Co-op Live for the first time. “It won’t be perfect,” he said. “Please bear with us as we get through the growing pains and learn tonight how to better operate this building.”
As Leiweke spoke, extensive construction work could be seen and heard taking place in the background. At the time, only the ground floor and sections of the first floor were open to visitors. In those areas, lights, cables and wires could be seen hanging loosely from fittings. Temporary wall and floor coverings were a common sight and only a small number of toilets were accessible. The cold temperature inside the building suggested either its heating system was not working or had not been switched on.
Rendering of the interior of Co-op Live in Manchester, England.
Courtesy of Oak View Group
Hours before doors opened that night, Co-op Live announced it had cancelled thousands of free tickets for the test event, provoking an angry backlash from disappointed fans on social media. Inside the venue, the show went ahead smoothy in front of several thousand people — but it was hardly the grand unveiling OVG were hoping for and was overshadowed by negative headlines.
Less than 48 hours later, Co-op Live began detailing the construction issues delaying the building’s opening, starting with power supply issues that would push back shows for Kay, the comic, and The Black Keys by one week.
That news was followed by the surprise resignation of Co-Op Live building manager Gary Roden, who came under fire from the UK based Music Venue Trust for criticizing a proposal to raise money for venue preservation by adding a surcharge to Co-op Live and other U.K. arena tickets. The next day, the rescheduled opening shows by The Black Keys and Kay were postponed for a second time.
In an interview with the Manchester Evening News, Leiweke said Brexit, Covid and a record amount of rainfall were in part to blame for the delays to the project, while a joint statement from Manchester City Council and the city’s emergency services on April 26 blamed outstanding issues should been fixed in advance of opening including “a fully tested emergency services communication system… some remaining internal security systems, and fire safety measures.”
On May 2, during a soundcheck for A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, a piece of the building’s ventilation system fell from the ceiling, shaking confidence in the building’s readiness. That led to another round of cancellations at Co-op Live, including upcoming shows by Rodrigo, Keane and Take That.
In response, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Take That’s teams jumped into action and moved their concerts (six in total) to Manchester’s rival arena facility, the ASM Global-operated AO Arena, who’s general manager Jen Mitchell relished the opportunity, telling Billboard, “Everyone really pulled everything out of the bag at the last minute. It’s been a lot of late-night calls and problem solving, but in the best possible way.”
Mitchell declines to discuss operations at Co-op Live but says she empathizes with the issues the venue has experienced. “Arenas are big venues and there’s always challenges around those, and opening any space comes with its own [unique] challenges,” she says.
In Roden’s absence, Co-op Live is now managed by Rebecca Kane Burton, the former GM of London’s O2 arena, which is owned and operated by AEG.
Over the past two weeks, contractors have been working overtime to fix outstanding issues to the building and get it ready for tonight, insiders tell Billboard. An inspection by Co-op Live subcontractor, SES, found that the issues with its ventilation system, which led to the pulling of A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie’s May 2 show, was the result of “an isolated manufacturing fault.”
Sources tell Billboard that all premium member spaces for which tickets have been sold are up and running, including the venue’s deluxe spaces, Ciroc Lounge and AMP Club. As compensation for recent disruptions, ticket holders for all postponed shows would be offered a free drink and food item of their choice when visiting the arena, Co-op Live said.
“I think the lesson to be learned in all of this, is never over promise and under deliver because it will catch you out,” says Mark Borkowski, founder of London-based communications agency Borkowski and an expert in crisis and reputation management.
“The magnifying glass is now on them but if they can get it right, and they have got to get it right, then all of this will be forgotten.” says Borkowski.
He cites the troubled birth of London’s Millennium Dome, which was subsequently redeveloped as The O2 arena, as an example of high-profile building projects that experience major teething problems before eventually turning it around.
“No project of this scale runs to plan,” adds Borkowski. “The negative headlines that surrounded the Millennium Dome totally dwarfed what’s going on in Manchester, but now [The O2] is held up as one of the best in the world. Co-op Live can use that as exemplar of what they need to do.”
Just days after releasing sophomore studio album Jugando A Que No Pasa Nada, Grupo Frontera has unveiled dates for its upcoming tour, set to kick off Aug. 2 in Las Vegas. The Mexican-American group, known for megahits such as “No Se Va” — the Morat cover that catapulted them to stardom — “Tulum” and “un […]