When the Music Stops
Gig workers among Portland’s many independent venues are struggling to secure relief. Many also find themselves at a crossroads as they face the uncertain future of an industry the coronavirus pandemic has decimated. From the availability of jobs to the future ownership of small venues, how much of Portland’s once-thriving local music scene will survive?
PART I: Unemployment benefits have eluded hard-hit gig economy workers.
PART II: The independent status of many Portland venues is threatened.
When the Music Stops: Part II
Theo Craig was at a career crossroads.
Working part time at Mississippi Studios as a talent buyer and at the community-based radio station XRAY FM as director of music programming, Craig was poised to commit full time to one position or the other.
Then, the global COVID-19 pandemic came along, and, as Craig put it, “the world was flipped upside-down.”
“It was kind of a one-two punch of being laid-off from Mississippi Studios and then just a couple of days later I was laid-off from XRAY FM,” Craig said, noting that he left both employers in mid-March on great terms. “It was disappointing but understandable. I wasn’t concerned for my livelihood as much as I was for the health and safety of our community.”
Craig, of course, is not alone. As the COVID-19 pandemic led to live music venues shuttering throughout the country following shelter-in-place guidelines, independent music venues were forced to severely reduce their workforces in order to keep their doors from closing permanently.
Live music entertainment relies on packed houses. Shows not only require talented musicians and venues to host performers, but a dedicated staff working hard behind the scenes: sound and light engineers, door people, bartenders, waitstaff, security, artists who produce show posters and many others.
“It’s kind of this well-oiled machine where everybody has their place to make a show run really well,” said Emily Overstreet, who books shows for The Old Church Concert Hall and runs the box offices at both Wonder Ballroom and McMenamins Edgefield.
COVID-19 and the subsequent social distancing practices have all but decimated the live music industry with a cataclysmic domino effect that’s closed venues, cut off a vital source of income for musicians, and placed thousands of live venue employees and contractors across the United States out of work.
While the Oregon Employment Department does not have exact figures on the number of live music venue personnel in Portland that have specifically been laid-off or furloughed, the department’s website, with data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, lists 1,133 continued unemployment claims by industry in the field of “Arts, Entertainment and Recreation” in Multnomah County for the month of April. Data for May has not yet been posted.
“We had 68 employees on the day of the shutdown,” said Rochelle Hunter, marketing director at Doug Fir. “Currently we have eight people back on payroll, but there was a good eight to 10 weeks where 100% of the staff was laid off.”
Doug Fir, which operates separately from the adjoining Jupiter Hotel, is planning to reopen their restaurant only.
“We don’t necessarily have a timeframe for the venue reopening because we really want to do it safely,” Hunter said. “Of course, we’re waiting on guidance from the county and the state.”
Even if Doug Fir’s music space were granted permission to reopen, it’s not realistic for the venue to operate at a lower capacity. Even operating at 25% capacity, in order to adhere to social distancing measures, would be difficult to do, given overhead costs and everything that goes into putting on a show.
Jim Brunberg, who co-owns Mississippi Studios and Revolution Hall, is the spokesperson for the Independent Venue Coalition of Oregon, a grassroots trade organization lobbying for financial relief for independent statewide music venues that do not qualify for the Paycheck Protection Program.
“It just so happens that there aren’t any venues in the state of Oregon that are owned by outside entities,” said Brunberg. “Every venue that’s locally owned — whether it’s owned by the people or owned by a company — all of them are independent.”
Working in conjunction with both the National Independent Venue Association and the Live Events Industry of Oregon, the coalition focuses on advocacy at the city and state level, assisting venues throughout Oregon with finding sources of funding. Currently, it’s lobbying for funding from the state’s share of the Coronavirus Relief Fund in order to provide assistance not only for venues, but musicians who are also struggling financially.
“We’re really hoping that this (coronavirus relief) money is spent on participants in the gig economy,” Brunberg said. “Portland has become increasingly inaccessible for people who don’t have a lot of money.”
The Independent Venue Coalition of Oregon encouraged all 100 of its member venues to each establish funding for employees that might have slipped through the cracks amid issues at the state Employment Department and are having a difficult time securing unemployment. These funds should also cover musicians, Brunberg said.
Beyond economic assistance, Hunter said, Doug Fir’s general manager, Selin Bert, would also like to see the coalition secure funding for much-needed personal protective equipment to ensure the safety of guests and workers.
Multnomah County recently submitted its framework for the Phase 1 reopening under Gov. Kate Brown’s three-phased approach to reopening the state. Phase 3 of Brown’s plan, which continues through September, curtails all mass gatherings such as concert and sporting events until a reliable treatment or vaccine for COVID-19 becomes available.
“It’s really affecting a lot of young people that work and are trying to survive in Portland, because the rent’s so high,” said Overstreet. “Most of us have four jobs at different venues or bounce around from venue to venue because we’re all trying to just get as many gigs as we can.”
Craig worries that entertainment promoters such as Live Nation, which in 2018, proposed building a concert facility in the Lloyd Center mall, and AEG Presents, which owns both the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Goldenvoice Productions, will seize this opportunity to encroach on Portland’s fiercely independent and interconnected music scene, while established venues struggle to make rent, pay existing staff and keep up with the bills.
“What do we have after that? Well, we have these multinational corporations that run a half-dozen concert promoting companies that already, before this, were buying up marketplaces around the country, making it really difficult for independent venues to subsist within the economy of live entertainment.”“These are the organizations that have the money to weather a year or two of empty venues, whereas these independents are not in a place to do that,” Craig said. “What we’re looking at is going to be really rough on this industry.
For Hunter, local, independently owned venues represent the culture and character of Portland in ways national corporations do not. She cautions that large corporate interests could have a homogenizing effect on Portland.
“If the music scene in Portland looks exactly like the music scene in Philly or L.A., then it would not be as special,” she said.
“There’s a support system in each of these venues made up of the staff,” said Overstreet. “It’s like a separate family. Beyond missing the music and sharing space with so many other people, I really feel like that support system is necessary right now.
“A lot of people don’t have much outside of that. It’s a big hole in a lot of people’s hearts,” Overstreet said.
“There are a lot of people that feel that what they do is completely tied up in these spaces,” said Peter Condra, who was furloughed from his positions as production manager and bartender at Mississippi Studios in mid-March. “A lot of people are 100% live music professionals, and there is no translatable avenue for them.
“If you are a musician and bartender, you can’t translate that into some other industry. It’s a niche. It doesn’t just let you hop over to some other gig. It’s a very specific industry.”
While Craig said that getting laid off from both of his jobs did throw him for a loop, he’s remained actively involved as a volunteer with XRAY FM, which is also struggling financially. Although he enjoys having creative input into the XRAY’s new streaming series, Craig still misses going out to live concerts.
“No one really knows what the future holds. When can you get 350 people together again?”