Lord Topia

OK. So I've been thinking about this for some time and these are the ramblings I've decided to put down in words:

I've been talking with Mat Cote about possibly getting a storefront in Downtown that ideally would be able to house both his vintage clothing business (in the front) and hosting shows in the back. This would be (in a perfect world) community-run and somewhat DIY, but it would still be a business. Therefore, "force-charging" i.e. disallowing people to come in free would be the norm. Granted, we'd be affordable and hopefully we'd be taking out far less if any money to cover "costs." The Badlander/Palace already take $150 out of the door for every show. Top Hat and Union Club generally take more. Though we'd have to be smart in planning this, I don't think we should take anything out of the door and ideally the split would either be 100% of the door going to the touring bands or possibly a 75% = touring, 25% = local split. It would really depend on the show. One option would be to offer 100% of the door to the touring band until a certain threshold is met. Say after $300 (that's 60 people paying $5) anything remaining would be split evenly between the locals. I dunno, just an idea.

A lot of online searching has left me with no answers regarding any kind of permits that'd be required. The noise ordinance is one thing that has me particularly worried. We also wouldn't be able to offer alcohol. I'd like to allow BYOB but policing it may prove a problem for the larger shows, especially if we wouldn't be able to smoke in the alley. Cops seeing tons of open containers and people milling about outside a storefront in downtown would be way too conspicuous and would most likely result in fines for the leaseholders and a ton of other problems.

This will be a long process if we even can get the space. Some remodeling will have to be done, an adequate PA will have to be procured, someone will need to be able to run it, people will need to be able to work the shows (I'm envisioning volunteers), and shows will need to be booked/promoted there in the first place. Now I know certain people around town kind of excel at certain aspects of this. Abe, I'm looking at you when it comes to building things and Dane is really good at promoting shows. Mikey from Fagrag, the Vaneks, and Marty are pretty outstanding when it comes to working the door. I know Colin from CVS, Dane, Josh, Nikki, Marty, and myself know tons of out-of-town bands that we can assist in getting shows. A lot of the "talent" is pretty solid throughout our wonderful little scene. I don't know what kind of time commitments would be needed and I don't even know if everyone I mentioned is even interested, but it's worth a shot at having a venue that would host bands the Badlander or the Top Hat would never touch. There are plenty of "bigger" bands too that would prefer to play a volunteer driven space over a more traditional for-profit so I'm really not worried about getting great shows for this yet-to-be-a-venue.

Also, during the winter months when few touring bands are coming through, we could still offer all-local shows but continue to charge a cover. That money could go into a fund that we could use to pay out of town bands when their shows aren't well attended. Granted, the locals wouldn't be making any money on those shows but they can know that they're enticing great music from outside Missoula to want to make the trek into Montana.
These are all just thoughts/ideas. I think they're pretty ok ones. I'm curious to see what your feedback may be.