Photo by Erez Avissar
Live music is, by nature, impermanent and ephemeral, but the places that show are staged can be either transitory or stable. All that’s needed is a power supply, a space for artists to play, and a place for the audience—meaning live music can happen most anywhere. I’ve seen bands play in a cemetery, in a botanical garden, a library, an industrial hallway, on a bridge, and in a skate bowl. I’ve been to huge festivals, clubs, and seen sets in churches, community centers, and many basements, kitchens, and living rooms. Despite all these options or spaces for opportunity, it’s harder than ever to get a show space off the ground, and keep it running. It’s no wonder so many spaces throughout the U.S. are illegal and temporary at best.
For the past year and a half, along with a cadre of friends and volunteers, I’ve been trying to get a sustainable all-ages show space off the ground here in Chicago. The city hasn’t had a stable, legal, dedicated all-ages space in over a decade, since the Fireside Bowl returned to its bowling alley roots. It’s not a battle unique to Chicago, though. All ages venues are increasingly few and far between as the real estate market bubbles and busts, and more people are moving to cities—putting a premium on space. The Wilson Center in D.C., which hosted shows in the '80s and '90s, became a charter school in 2001 (though, like the Fireside, it still hosts shows infrequently). The Che Cafe in San Diego has been struggling to maintain the space in which it’s held shows for over thirty years, since being evicted by the University of California administration.
Some cities have clubs that have the capacity for all-ages shows, but since they make most of their money off beer sales, doing all-ages all with any frequency isn’t a sustainable practice for them. There are many wonderful spaces that operate below ground that don’t have age barriers, but finding your way into those spaces when you aren’t already an insider isn’t easy. The addresses aren’t published, for good reason. Cops patrol blog postings and Facebook in Chicago, just as they do in Boston, Philadelphia and other cities around the country, in order to raid and shut down any unlicensed spaces they find. Where does that leave kids who are just starting to really get into music? Or adults who have fallen out of the scene for whatever reason? Anyone who don’t have the social connections necessary to find out what’s happening?
As knowledge access can be a barrier, so, obviously, can physical access, an issue perfectly addressed by my friend and colleague Sean Gray in his recent op-ed. The space my friends and I are attempting to find for our venue must be either ground-floor (with no steps) or have an adequate elevator, and must have restrooms that meet the standards of the American Disability Association, with wide enough doorways and grab bars where necessary. (There’s also the issue of harassment for people with visible disabilities, which is something we are considering as well as other forms of harassment.) Why put on shows unless everyone can come and be as comfortable as possible?
We’re considering multiple needs and experiences for the interior design once we have a space. How will we account for height differences, if at all? Can we afford to build in some sort of tiers or bleachers? This is not that big a deal for people who are within the average range of height for the American male (and who don’t need a chair or walker), but I’m 4’10”, and I’m incredibly sensitive to the idea that shorter people have just as much of a right to see a show from more than one space in the crowd (right up against the stage), and taller people should have a range of places to stand that don’t impede shorter folks’ view. We’ll need to have some kind of seating available for people who cannot physically stand through an entire show; what will that look like? How will artists who can’t climb stairs get up to the stage area? How do we set up our PA so that it’ll sound as good as possible from as many places as possible in the room?
Then, there’s the question of the location of the space itself within the city. In order to acquire a public performance license, we need to be in an area that is zoned for commercial use, far enough away from residentially-zoned property so that the noise won’t be a constant neighborhood bother. Yet our potential space also needs to be located in a place accessible by public transportation, a place that is someplace that people can travel safely to and feel safe in. We’ve given a great deal of consideration to the neighborhood lighting—many straight women and LGBTQ people (including myself) weigh every time whether it’s worth going to a show if it involves a long walk, dark streets. A lifetime of expecting the worst in when we’re in public, nights of walking to shows looking over our shoulders constantly means were looking for venues that are situated for the safety of the people coming to shows.
We don’t just expect the worst outside, either—whether it’s being groped in a crowd or being harassed for our physical appearances, rock clubs have historically not been the most welcoming spaces for straight women and LGBTQ people of all genders, though things seem to be slowly improving on this front through the hard work of a relatively small number of people. How do we make a space that is friendly to kids and teens on top of all of that, a space that they feel that they have a stake in? When you’re at a show space often enough, it starts to feel like home—how can we design a place that people want to be at home in?
Much of the national—and international—efforts to keep all-ages spaces alive and start new ones are spearheaded by folks much younger than me determined to find places to play and watch live music, as they always have been. Organizations like the All Ages Movement Project seek to put tools to build all-ages spaces in every open hand. As I’ve outlined above, it isn’t easy going, especially in this economy and this environment. Keeping a show space open or starting a new one like we’re doing requires dedication and resources—and one of the strongest of those resources is community support. We’ve been able to come as far as we have because of the incredible people we know and their skills and time, and I’d suspect from anecdotal and observed evidence that our situation isn’t unique. Go check out the all-ages show spaces in your city if you haven’t already—and if you don’t have one, and you want one, there’s no time like the present to get involved.