Portland’s east side poised to host 2 new venues, could boost the city’s music scene

Two new music venues are likely coming to Portland’s east side within the next couple of years.

It comes as local music advocates say Portland’s robust network of live music venues has a big hole: facilities that are able to host concerts for 3,500 to 5,000 fans.

One of the proposed venues is planned for the Southeast waterfront near the Hawthorne Bridge. The venue would be built by local firms but run by global concert promotion company Live Nation. It is expected to host up to 3,500 audience members. The other proposal would redevelop the Lloyd Center’s old Nordstrom building into a 4,250-capacity venue run by local promoters Monqui Presents and national entertainment group AEG.

“There is absolutely a gap in Portland’s market for venues,” said Jamie Dunphy, board member of the mostly volunteer-run trade group MusicPortland and candidate for Portland City Council. “Historically, what’s happened in the city is that tours of that size — and in the 4,000-person range, we’re thinking of a Lizzo concert, we’re thinking of emerging midsize artists who are not stadium-ready yet, but are big names — they skip Portland. They just skip us, they go from San Francisco directly to Seattle.”

Experts in the health of a city’s arts ecosystem say developing new music venues with capacities between 3,500 and 4,500 tend to have a noticeable positive economic impact on a city. However, venues are notoriously challenging and expensive to build, often requiring outside investment. Experts also say a venue’s success hinges on how the developers and operators cooperate with stakeholders in a city’s local music scene.

“We need those outside investments in order to try and create a vibrant economy,” Dunphy said. “But it matters how you come to our community — and whether or not it is something that is happening with us or to us.”

Dunphy said he’s cautiously optimistic about the development at the Lloyd Center, but MusicPortland has not formally taken a position on the project. MusicPortland publicly opposes and is appealing the Live Nation venue, citing concerns about how the company has operated in other cities.

Live Nation, which also owns Ticketmaster, is being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice and more than three dozen states, including Oregon, for allegedly behaving as a monopoly in a way that hurts fans and artists.

Venue ladder for healthy music scene

Experts on the economics of city music scenes say concert venues don’t rise and fall in a vacuum.

“Live music venues on their own don’t really survive unless there’s an ecosystem to support them,” said Jett Glozier, global head of infrastructure for Sound Diplomacy, an international research and consulting firm that works with cities on developments geared towards the arts.

When advising cities about music venues and who should own them, Glozier said it’s vital to communicate early in the development of a venue who the targeted audience will be, and what type of acts the space will likely host. He said success often takes a mix of outside investment and deep knowledge of the local music scene.

“I do understand the argument between wanting things to be locally owned versus more national or international companies owning things,” Glozier said. “But I think there’s a balance between the two that is probably the best of both worlds.”

For local music scenes to thrive, they need a venue ladder as described by Michael Seman, who is the director of the arts management program at Colorado State University. His research looks at the cultural, economic and social impacts of music venues.

According to Seman, a venue ladder consists of multiple components in order to foster a healthy music scene: 1) small, all-ages venues plus nightclubs and bars; 2) spaces for 100-200 audience members that regularly host local and regional bands; and 3) 250-seat rooms and above that can host touring acts.

Related: Live Nation wants to operate a venue in Portland. Local promoters have other ideas

Seman’s research shows that smaller venues offer positive social and cultural impacts to a city’s music scene, as well as some economic benefits. Meanwhile, larger venues may contribute in small ways to a local scene’s culture and offer spots for social gatherings.

“But in this case the economic impacts are probably paramount,” he said, “You have a 3,500-seat venue, that’s a lot of people coming to see a show. The surrounding businesses are going to benefit, perhaps hotels, motels that are being booked, people going out to dinner, things like that — that’s totally been verified and proven all over the country. But there’s also jobs.”

Seman points to direct jobs, like sound engineers and security staff for venues, and indirect jobs, like restaurant and hotel workers. And in general, Seman said the more venues and other music-related businesses and organizations a city has, the more likely it is to attract and develop musicians. That’s even more true in cities like Portland that have sophisticated audience members interested in supporting new and experimental music.

He acknowledges that working with large companies like Live Nation or AEG can be problematic, but it’s a reality in today’s music industry. And he expects that having two venues open with backing from big companies will be an economic boon to Portland without hurting the independent music scene.

“The possibility exists, that one [venue] makes it, one doesn’t,” Seman said. “But the possibility also exists that they both cohabitate. And looking back at the economic cluster theory, one of the main tenants is firms and companies push each other. So, yes, they’re competitive, but they’re also cooperative, and trying to push each other to do the best they can.”