For bands trying to make it big, LA’s small independent stages provide a place to cut their teeth and grow an audience. For artists content staying underground, these rooms offer an opportunity to play that a mainstream club might not. Unbeholden to the pressure to book just what’s popular, indie venues support lesser-known genres with niche audiences.
Jef Soubiran, who owns Zebulon in FrogTown, sees this as part of his core mission. Venues like his “give access to some people who never listen [to] some free jazz or some avant-garde or some experimental, some minimal, some punk rock,” he says. “They suddenly [are] in contact and in touch with it.”
Jef Soubiran owns Zebulon in FrogTown. Because most of the money from tickets goes to the artists, the venue makes its revenue at the bar. Photo Credit: Zeke Reed.
But running an independent venue is not easy, and inflation makes it harder. The proprietors who own their buildings have some stability, but those who don’t face the specter of rising rents.
Plus, indie venues face serious competition from the two major conglomerates that control much of the live music market in LA and across the country: Live Nation and AEG.
Live Nation operates spots like The Echo, The Wiltern and the Hollywood Palladium, while AEG runs venues like The Roxy, the El Rey and the Shrine in addition to putting on Coachella.
Indie venues have to get scrappy to stay in the black.
Most make their primary income one of two ways. If they’ve got a big enough room, the money mostly comes from the door.
Such is the case at the Lodge Room in Highland Park, according to owner Dalton Gerlach. “We have to survive on ticket sales, so it's really just a volume thing for us,” he tells KCRW. “We're not making that much money at the bar.”
LA indie dance duo Brijean performs to a packed crowd at the Lodge Room in Highland Park. Photo Credit: Zeke Reed.
For smaller spots like Gold Diggers in East Hollywood, it’s usually the opposite. Owner Dave Neupert explains, “The door is a break even for us. We're making money off the bar. We want to sell drinks, and that's what it comes down to.”
But beyond selling drinks and tickets, all of the venue owners KCRW spoke to were exploring other ways to make money such as private event rentals, location fees for film shoots, and DJ nights, which tend to drive higher bar sales than live performances. Gold Diggers even operates a hotel and recording studio.
Permanent Records in Northeast LA functions as a hybrid record store and venue. Owner Lance Barresi says that helps diversify his income streams: “One hundred percent of the door money goes to the artists. … We only take revenue from our shows from the sales we do at the bar and whatever sales we do in the record store. Generally speaking, 60 % of our revenue comes from bar sales, 40% from record sales.”
Other spots chose to go the nonprofit route. Flow Sanctuary is a sober event space in Venice that hosts concerts and community programming. Because they don’t sell alcohol, they rely on donations.
“A lot of people have also stepped up in helping, from donating their time [to] offering classes and workshops,” says owner “Magick” Mike Milane. “We're hoping we can do fundraisers and other things that other nonprofits do.”
Flow Sanctuary is a sober community space in Venice that hosts events focused on wellbeing. “Magick” Mike Milane says they rely on donations of money and time to keep the lights on. Photo Credit: Zeke Reed.
Even places that do sell alcohol don’t have guaranteed revenue. Recent data from Billboard shows younger people are drinking less at concerts, and several local venue owners describe people of all ages cutting back at the bar for financial and health reasons.
Permanent Records’ Barresi says that hits the bottom line: “If you have a bunch of teetotalers who don't even want to spend $3 on a soda at the bar, then you're sunk.”
Even in the best-case scenario, owning an independent venue is not a way to get rich. As Zebulon’s Soubiran puts it, “The idea to open a music venue and want to make money, it doesn't exist. … You need to have the love of what you do.”
The Lodge Room’s Gerlach echoes this sentiment. “The financial reward of it is not really quite there,” he notes. “But I'd say the social and relational reward of it is there. … Just the being at shows, and the community, and there’s so many intangible things around what I get to do that [are] really special.”
If these venues went out of business, LA’s music scene would be more bland and harder to break into. That’s not lost on Soubrian.
“If we [are] taken over by [a] corporation, it would be the same taste everywhere,” he argues. “It's nice to have [a] different flavor.”
These stages are part of what keeps LA interesting, and we can all support by buying a ticket and a drink, alcoholic or otherwise, at the bar.