AUSTIN, Texas — Live venues have taken a financial hit because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but just because they can open on Wednesday, March 10, doesn’t mean all of them will be opening.
Each venue will have to make their own choice for whether they open up next week, and what restrictions they will have, if any.
Continental Club announced on Facebook it would not be opening up, saying, “We will be closed until it is deemed safe for us to open our doors, and we will closely follow CDC guidelines once we do open. We are counting on a more efficient rollout of the vaccines and hoping to see you sooner than later.”
Saxon Pub also won’t be opening up until it feels it is safe for its staff, musicians and patrons. On Facebook the music venue adds, “It is not an easy decision and we hope everyone understands and appreciates our decision.”
“The feedback I’m getting from a lot of musicians in town is they’re not ready to play. They’re still worried. And for a funny thing about it, if we don’t have musicians at Saxon Pub, we don’t have any business,” said owner Joe Ables.
He adds they are going to wait until the number of vaccinations goes up. He also is encouraging his employees to get vaccinated.
Comedy spots Esther’s Follies, Hideout Theatre and Fallout Theater also are waiting to open. All will be reassessing once the vaccine rollout is further along.
“I think one of the biggest things we’re looking at are the numbers of how much of the city is vaccinated,” said Carlos LaRotta, co-owner of Fallout Theater.
The theater doesn’t have a date for when it will return, but it does have safety plans in place.
“When we open up, I can guarantee you that there’s going to be masks in the audience,” said Fallout Theater co-owner Aaron Walther.
He adds they are hesitant to allow drinks, so patrons are not tempted to take their masks off. They will also be limiting capacity and reducing their weekly number of shows.
Esther’s Follies also has plans to limit capacity, require masks and social distance once they are back open. The owner, Shannon Sedwick, said she thinks they will open sometime in the summer, but might start doing rehearsals soon.
“We want our people to flock back and we want them all to enjoy it and to have new material when we do open up,” said Sedwick.
There are live music venues that have already opened. Empire Control Room started having limited-capacity shows with mask requirements and social distancing requirements. Now, even though they aren’t forced to keep those rules, they aren’t changing.
“No, we’re not going to change the way that we do business, at least initially,” said Dave Machinist, partner at Empire Control Room. He adds, “Obviously, we know there’s more vaccine coming and depending on its efficacy throughout our community, that’s when I think that we can start talking about doing less social distancing or relaxing some of the rules that we have about coming to concerts at our venue.”
At One2One Bar they started having socially distanced shows on Friday, Feb. 26. The owner, Flip Lockhoof, said next week, he will let bands decide whether they want patrons to wear masks or socially distance.
Lockhoof said he was excited about the governor’s announcement, saying, “There’s lots of great live music venues in this town. But we got to get back on the map of being the live music capital of the world. And so anything we can do, we have to go slow. We’ll go slow, but I’m hoping people will get out.”
Musician Jackie Venson said she believes the Austin community wouldn’t show up to venues that decide to open up at full capacity with no social distancing or mask requirements.
“The Austin community is going to do what it’s going to do. It’s going to follow the rules because we care about people’s lives. We don’t care about what the leadership tells us to do. If what they’re telling us to do disregards people’s lives, we’re not going to listen to it,” said Venson.
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