You think Milwaukee has a ton of concerts now.
Just wait until spring 2024.
That's when a 3,500-person-capacity, ballroom-style concert venue is scheduled to open, pending approvals from city officials. Partially run by Milwaukee's Pabst Theater Group, it wouldbe part of a proposed 11-acre development on the city's west side, Iron District MKE,includingan 8,000-seat professional soccer stadium.
Just a few months before that venue would make its debut, less than a mile away in the Deer District, another concert venue is expected to open its doors.
Run by Madison-based FPC Live — concert behemoth Live Nation owns a controlling stake in FPC'sparent company,Frank Productions — the $50 million concert complex is planned with an 800-person-capacity club and 4,000-person-capacity ballroom.
Thetwo new venues wouldbe less than two miles away from the Rave, an independent operator thathas been hosting concerts in its 3,500-person-capacity Eagles Ballroom and in three other rooms for 31 years.
Together, the new venues are expected to host up to 235 concerts a year.
But can Milwaukee, whose population has dropped to its lowest numbers since 1930, according to the U.S. Census (in addition to stagnant population levels in the greater metro area), really support that many new concerts?
Or will existing venues in town — including the 5,000-seat outdoor BMO Harris Pavilion, the 4,000-seat Miller High Life Theatre, and the 2,500-seat Riverside Theater — see business decline if and when the new places open up?
Live-music industry experts who work in or closely monitor Milwaukee agree that it would bean atypically large influx of venues for a city of 577,000, but they differ on whether it'll betoo much for the market to absorb.
"Milwaukee is getting 80 to 90%of the talent that goes out on tour, so I don't know where the extra shows are going to come from," said Doug Johnson, a former talent buyer for the Miller High Life Theatre, UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, Bradley Center and Summerfest. He's currently booking the BMO Harris Bank Center and Coronado Theatre in Rockford, Illinois,as those venues' assistant general manager.
"It's a big change, and I don't know if Milwaukee is big enough to sustain it."
Shank Hall owner and independent concert promoter Peter Jest echoes Johnson's concerns.
"If there are four 3,500to 4,500 general-admission buildings, five years from now, one of them will be doing horse shows," Jest said. "There won't be enough concerts. …It would be hard for me to believe that all these venues can survive."
Pabst Theater Group CEO Gary Witt, naturally, begs to differ.
"The beauty of Milwaukee is that there are 9.9 million people in the Chicago metro area," said Witt, who estimates that 30% of ticket buyers for Pabst Theater Group venues (including the High Life Theatre, Riverside, Pabst Theater, Turner Hall Ballroom and Back Room at Colectivo Coffee) come from Illinois. "Getting to Milwaukee is easier for 850,000 people in the north suburbs of Chicago."
And the recent addition of venues in cities like Minneapolis andAustin, Texas, where long-running independent venues have stayed open,suggests there's room for more venues and showsacross the United States, said Dave Brooks, senior director of live and touring for Billboard.
The music industry in general expects that demand for concerts will grow after the pandemic paused touring for much of 2020 and half of 2021.Industry trade magazine Pollstar projects that, collectively, the top 100 tours in 2022 will gross $5.63 billion and sell about 65 million tickets, a 12% jump from 2019 levels.
FPC Live, the Pabst Theater Group and the Rave all survived the COVID-forced live event shutdown with federal help. From a $16.25 billion Shuttered Venue Operator Grant program that took effect last year, the Pabst Theater Group received $10.8 million, FPC Live $10 million and Eagles Entertainment, the LLC for the Rave, received $5.7 million.
"It doesn't take away necessarily from anyone or anything," Brooks said of more Milwaukee venues potentially opening. "It just makes it very competitive, and the competition will happen at the A-level where all sides are bringing in really good shows."
Nevertheless, Brooks says "there is a limit on how many shows are at the 4,000-capacity mark. …I would assume that there would be winners and losers on these projects."
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FPC Live partners with Bucks
On paper, the two-venue complex proposed by FPC Live may be the most likely winner — despite somesetbacks since the project was announced in December 2021.
Initially, FPC Live planned to open the venue in the Third Ward adjacent to Maier Festival Park, on an empty lot owned by Summerfest parent company Milwaukee World Festival Inc.
Afterpushback from neighboring condo owners and developers, FPC Live and Milwaukee World Festival announced in May that the venue would no longer open in the Third Ward.
Tendays later, FPC Live revealed anew location for the project: 1.6 acres of a 5.7-acre site on the northeast corner of the former Bradley Center location, adjacent to Fiserv Forum.
"The Bucks have done a great job developing (the Deer District) with bars and restaurants," Charlie Goldstone, co-president of FPC Live, told the Journal Sentinel. "We will support the Bucks and other businesses in any way we can. Having all these partners together is the way this works in the best way possible."
"It will help the whole scene in attracting artists and getting them to view Milwaukee as a city they need to play at every stage in their career."
Having a venue next to the Bucks arenamakes it "a pretty smart project," Brooks said.
"A championship-level organization, any kind of NBA team, will always be a premier partner, in terms of the status they bring and the marketing power they have," Brooks said.
The project requiresMilwaukee Common Council zoning and design approval.
Ald. Robert Bauman, whose district includes downtown, says the Deer District site is a good location for the concert venues.Mayor Cavalier Johnson also has signaled his support.
Goldstone has said that the new venue would host about 135 tours a year. Doug Johnson suspects the majority of showswill be in the 800-person-capacity venue.
"They're cheaper tickets, they're cheaper to put on, and as you go up the ladder, the amount of talent shrinks," Johnson said.
More buying power for Live Nation
If FPC Live builds itsown venue, the Rave and Pabst Theater Group venues could no longer count on booking FPC Liveshows. This year in Milwaukee, for instance, FPC Live was the Milwaukee promoter for a Live Nation tourwith Smokey Robinson (at the Pabst's Miller High Life Theatre).
"It doesn't make sense financially," Brooks said. "Live Nation makes so much more money (from shows)when it owns the venue."
FPC Live is the primary promoter for concerts at Fiserv Forum, serving as the local promoter for Live Nation tours. It serves that same role at Milwaukee World Festival's BMO Harris Pavilion and 23,000-person-capacity American Family Insurance Amphitheater, where it's the preferred promoter for all concerts outside of Summerfest.
Overall, in 2021, FPC Live was the 33rd-largestpromoter in the world based on tickets sold, according to Pollstar. Live Nation, which owns a controlling stake in Frank Productions, is by far the biggest player in the concert industry. This year, it had its biggest first quarter in its history, with an adjusted operating income of $209 million, after reporting $6.27 billion in revenue for 2021.
"If they have 135 shows a year, they will get them by pulling from other places," Jest predictedof FPC Live's proposed venue. "They have a lot of money behind them. … Live Nation buys anything that moves onstage."
"If Live Nation gets even more aggressive with putting more and more tours in their own buildings, there won't be many acts for people to buy independently."
Case in point: Jack White.
For much of his career, the rocker has been fiercely loyal to the Rave. But Jest suspects Live Nation threw a"ridiculous amount of money" at him for his current tour. For his next Milwaukee show, White isworking with FPC Live, playing the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena onAug. 16.
Pabst 'engrained' in music community
Despite Live Nation and FPC Live'sdeep pockets, Witt pointedout: "They can't buy everything."
The Pabst Theater Group recently scored a Riverside Theater date forthe highly anticipated North Americantour for the Smile, the new band featuring Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood. FPC Live didn't.
"They're up against formidable opponents," Johnson said of Pabst's potential venue battle with FPC Live. "But they've been engrained in the music community for 20 years. …They're a good, solid Milwaukee play. They have strength in their relationships with agents and managers."
In an interview, Witt also called the Pabst Theater Group "formidable," and the business expansion over its two decades has been impressive. It has grownfrom the Pabst Theater to include the Riverside, the 987-person-capacity Turner Hall Ballroom, the 300-person-capacity Back Room at Colectivo Coffeeand, starting this spring, the Miller High Life Theatre. (Previously, the latter had been booked by the Wisconsin Center District.)
In July, the Pabst Theater Group also announced it had acquired Villa Filomena, an east side mansion built in 1874 that has been renamed the Fitzgerald, to host weddings and private events.
As the concert wars heat up, special events and private rentals outside the live music space will be crucial revenue streams for Milwaukee venues, Brooks said. And the Pabst Theater Group's growth of family, podcast and especially comedy bookings — about 40% of tickets sold are for comedy shows — gives ita significant advantage, Johnson said.
All of those types of programming generally play seated theaters, which the Pabst has and FPC Live's new venue would not.
"We've built this developmental ladder that allows us the ability to grow artists from 300 (person shows) up to 4,000," Witt said. "A (larger) room that is more general admission than fully seated… this was a bit of a missing piece of the puzzle."
Witt said Jim Kacmarcik, owner of Iron District developer Kacmarcik Enterprises and president of Grafton-based metal fabricating and stamping company Kapco Inc., imagined a concert venue at the site "all along," and that the Pabst Theater Group was "an obvious choice to do something like this."
Kacmarcik himself has had multiple music ventures, including Nashville-based publishing and artist development agency Given Entertainment, and he staged the Kapco Live at the Lot drive-in concert series during the pandemic in 2020.
Along with the concert venue and the 8,000-seat soccer stadium, the Iron District would include a nine-story, 140-room hotel that would be attached to the venue and owned by Iron District partner Bear Development LLC.
The district also would include99 apartments with underground parking as well as street-level restaurant and retail space.
"It provides connectivity that didn't exist before with Potawatomi and Harley, with Fiserv Forum and the Brewers stadium, and connects Marquette to downtown," Witt said. "And it will be uniquely developed in an area that has been underserved and sitting ugly for so long."
The development site is bordered by North Sixth Street to the east, West Michigan Street to the north, and the I-794/I-43 interchange to the east and south.The developers are buying the site from Marquette University; the site includes a large vacant lot as well as the former Ramada Hotel and other buildings that are to be demolished.
"To kind of launch an entertainment community in the city that didn't exist previously, to get a chance to play a role … it's a gift," Witt said.
Iron District still needs city approvals
The Iron District, including the concert venue, wouldneed zoning and design approval.
The project’s developers also requested a tax incremental financing district to help pay for affordable apartments that are part of the Iron District’s plans.
The proposedfinancing district, which wouldprovide $1.8 million generated by the apartments’ property tax revenue, was approved by the Common Council and Mayor Johnson in July.
The Pabst Theater Group projects that the new concert venue will host80 to 100 tours a year. But it won't do it alone;when the project was announced, the Pabst group saidit would partner with a national promoter. Witt declined to say who that might be.
Brooks suspects two potential candidates: AEG, the second largest live entertainment company in the world (the Pabst already uses their ticketing platform AXS); or possibly Chicago-based veteran promoter and venue operator Jam Productions, which recently announced a partnership with SaveLive, a consortium of independent promoters and venues run by Lollapalooza co-founder Marc Geiger, former global leader of William Morris Endeavor's music division.
"They'll need (a larger promoter) to try and stay on the same field as the Rave and FPC Live," Johnson said.
But Witt saidhe's not paying "attention to the competition."
"We invest in our business to make ourselves better," he said. "I know Live Nation will not have a dining room (for artists and crews) with a full-time chef, barista and pastry chef. …We've worked hard to cultivate customers. We've always carried 20-something beers that are always sold below concert prices."
"You should ask (FPC Live) if they can hold their own against us."
What's the fate of the Rave?
But what about the Rave — whichcould be fighting for bookings with two new competitors, both backed by national promoters, each of them with brand-new, Eagles Ballroom-style venues?
Rave co-owner Leslie West did not return a request for an interview. But Brooks, Johnson, Jest and even Wittsuggested the Rave will be here to stay.
"They've made incredible contributions to making Milwaukee as successful as it's been," Witt said of West and Rave co-owner Joe Balistreri. "People love to go there. I see 4,000 people there for an awful lot of shows. …They'll succeed and survive, and I see a long future for them. …I have tremendous respect for what they do."
"The Rave is the ultimate independent promoter, and some people still want to use independent promoters," Johnson said. "It's a mindset. 'We're a punk band, we're a heavy metal band, we're rebels.' Because thereare independent promoters like the Rave that pay them good money, they don't have to look anywhere else."
"And the independent bands that the Rave books, they see it as the greatest place in the world," Johnson continued. "It comes down to relationships and how you treat your bands and how you treat your outside patrons, and they're treated extremely well there. I truly don't think agents are going to throw those relationships away."
Pop superstar Shawn Mendes recently told the Journal Sentinel that the Eagles Ballroom was one of his favorite venues. Several A-listers — including Kesha, Steve Aoki and Panic! At The Disco's Brendon Urie — have said the venue was one of their favorites, too, drawn by the venue's grit.
The Rave's allegedly haunted empty pool is one of its signatures — even getting a shout-out on Donald Glover's FX series "Atlanta"(Glover played the venue for aChildish Gambino show).In June, T-Pain selected the Rave as the host venue for his first curated festival. And in April, the Rave scored one of the hottest tours of the year, with breakout pop phenomenon Olivia Rodrigo, as an independent promoter — despite Live Nation being the promoter for most of the other spring dates.
"I think they can all co-exist, especially if they kind of find their audiences and find their paths forward and make the right business decisions," Brooks said. "The more music you're bringing into a town, the more you are developing a music-buying market, and the more you are basically creating customers and people who go to concerts and increasing the number of shows people go to.
"That can be really great for Milwaukee, where fans get more options at newer buildings and older, legacy buildings that people love."
Correction: An earlier version of this story indicated FPC Live was the promoter for Olivia Rodrigo's show at the Rave this year. Live Nation was the promoter for most dates on the tour, but the Rave acted as an independent promoter, without FPC Live or Live Nation, for that show.
Tom Daykin of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
ContactPiet at (414) 223-5162 orplevy@journalsentinel.com. Followhim on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.
