THE SHOW MUST GO ON

How Cincinnati’s music venues are stillsurviving challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March of 2020, music venues across the world were forced to temporarily close as cases of COVID-19 began to rise. For the first time ever, Cincinnati’s music venues had to think outside the box to give locals the one thing they desperately needed amid the isolation of a global pandemic: community. No matter what they had to do to bring music and community to Cincinnatians — virtual performances, limited-capacity concerts and major career pivots — local venues, producers and musicians were willing to take a chance.

In a survey conducted by the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) in June of 2020, 90 percent of independent venue owners, promoters and bookers said that they would have to permanently close in the following months if they did not receive additional funding. Despite the unprecedented threat, none of Cincinnati’s independent music venues have permanently closed since the COVID-19 pandemic first halted operations in March of 2020. In fact, Cincinnati gained two new venues out of the pandemic — MegaCorp Pavilion and the Andrew J Brady Music Center.

To get a sense of how Greater Cincinnati’s music scene is bouncing back and overcoming obstacles presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, CityBeat spoke with local music venues, musicians, producers and tour managers who are working to keep the heart and soul alive in the local music scene.

Business Booms — and Margins Slim — as Big Cincinnati Concert Venues Push Onward

BY KILLIAN BAARLAER

If you thought 2021 was a hard year for you, imagine trying to open a major new music venue in it. Both MegaCorp Pavilion — once known as PromoWest Pavilion at OVATION — and The Andrew J Brady Music Center opened that year as the COVID19 pandemic continued to drag on. Located in entertainment districts along the Ohio River, the venues were in prime positions to host big-name acts with large crowds of concertgoers who could spend money at nearby businesses — but they found themselves navigating what it meant to promote and host concerts in a market that was vastly changed by the pandemic.

As more established venues learned as well, it was a matter of adjusting to new regulations and expectations almost on the fly. Maximum capacities had been stripped back, masking requirements were the new normal and proof of vaccination or recent COVID testing was common. Parlay these uncharted protocols with fluctuating case numbers that put virtually any show at risk of being canceled, along with buyer hesitancy spawned by increased ticket prices and health safety concerns, and Cincinnati suddenly had a music scene that needed to get its swagger back.

When MegaCorp Pavilion opened that August, they faced the risk of shows being canceled even while grappling with the challenges of building a reputation in a new city. It didn’t knock them off track.

Even so, a few shows that were canceled for various reasons muddied operations during the first few months that the venue was open to the public. Some concertgoers were wracked with hesitancy, doubting if a given show would actually happen, and others were uncomfortable entering crowded and confined public spaces — even as the venue aimed to establish itself as a power player in the local music scene, Marissa McClellan, the marketing director for MegaCorp Pavilion, tells CityBeat “We started building the venue before anyone had ever heard of COVID, so we definitely weren’t planning for something like that to happen…We opened to a completely different world than we were used to,” McClellan says.

The learning curve was steep. But as both MegaCorp Pavilion and the region’s other big venues soon realized, with new challenges came new opportunities.

New, post-pandemic norms

As live music returned, venues scrambled to design new strategies to accommodate fans’ safety concerns about attending live events, while artists’ increased asking prices narrowed profit margins, often resulting in additional fees being passed on to ticket buyers. The months following the height of the pandemic proved unpredictable.

MegaCorp Pavilion and Madison Theater report surging attendance at shows in the backend of 2021, outperforming pre-pandemic expectations, presumably because of fan fervor to re-engage with events and rituals that had been halted during the first year of the pandemic, according to both McClellan and Frank Hulefeld, programming director at Madison Theater.

Todd Duesing, chief operating officer and vice president of Cincinnati Arts Association, which manages Cincinnati Music Hall and the Aronoff Center, says following the return to full capacity in late 2021, venues noted an unusually high number of paying no-shows. Although there’s no exact science to identify the reasons for increased noshows, Duesing believes that people decided last-minute not to attend the concerts that they had purchased tickets for after thinking over the potential threat of spreading COVID. This trend has tempered in the past year-and-ahalf, says Duesing, although concertgoers generally continue to be more wary about spreading and catching illnesses than they were before the pandemic.

In turn, venues have modified their strategies to adapt to new consumer habits and COVID-related health standards.

Cincinnati Symphonic Orchestra first offered livestream shows in September 2020 when in-person concerts were prohibited, transitioning into hybrid format shows with online and limited capacity in-person attendance options in January 2021. Hybrid format shows are now a mainstay in CSO’s concerts at Music Hall, according to Duesing, balancing the brightness of live music with inclusivity for those who can’t get in the room physically.

This model has been especially helpful for sharing the symphony experience with schools around the city that are typically unable to transport children to see CSO shows at Music Hall, says Duesing.

Increased competition

An abundance of big-name shows heightened by the expanded network of major venues in Greater Cincinnati has created a crowded concert market with plenty of opportunity for fans. However, fans often have limited income that they are willing to spend on concerts. With venues trying to optimize profitability through ticket sales, they’ve had to consider how to draw people to their shows instead of their competitors’.

“Let’s say you’re some 25-year-old and you’ve got 100 bucks to spend every six months approximately on concerts — you get one or two shows. Well, now, there’s so many shows going that the likelihood that one or two [shows] that person is going to attend is at your venue is greatly diminished,” says Hulefeld.

To cope with the tenacious competition in the Cincinnati market, Hulefeld sets his sights on shows he knows will turn heads and draw crowds, sacrificing some shows to other venues in order to get the ones he’s confident will be profitable.

Some fans are struggling to keep up with the cascade of shows. “We’re competing with our own dollars with how many shows we’re putting through the market. You know, the general person only has so much money that they can spend on their ticket,” McClellan says.

At the same time, artist fees have risen, with many demanding higher “artist guarantees” than before the pandemic. That forces venues to operate with tighter margins and pass on bloated ticketing fees to consumers.

“We tend to not make a ton of money, but the money we make through shows or through small, incremental revenues are enough to really keep our venues operating,” Duesing tells CityBeat. “It’s a challenge, particularly with more and more that artist guarantees increase.”

Stubborn inflation gives artists a rationale for demanding higher guarantees,

Duesing says. While this slims the monetary wiggle room for venues, they are left with limited alternatives — meeting artist demands is necessary to keep the venue programmed, he says. Music Hall has experimented with new streams of revenue to compensate for some of this loss, such as VIP and pre-show exclusive ticket package options, says Duesing.

The competition can be fierce. Hulefeld recalls stout bids for sought-after shows getting outbid by other local venues.

During the bidding process, musical artists scheduling tours solicit proposal offers from multiple venues within the markets they want to play in. If an artist expresses interest in playing a show in Cincinnati, tour agents will usually reach out to multiple venue promoters in the area to shop for the most attractive offer. Beating out offers by Madison Theater’s competing venues has been a challenge, says Hulefeld.

Madision Theater joined D Tour, a national collaborative of independently programmed venues that works with artists, to get a piece of the bustling action in touring. D Tour acts symbiotically with artists by connecting partnered venues with artists. Artists who schedule shows at partnered venues are referred to other D Tour venues around the country, helping venues land touring acts and also helping musicians simplify the task of booking a series of shows.

Even with plenty of big venues, Jonathan “Jon Jon” Curl of Kiss 107.1 FM says Cincinnati is often an overlooked destination for artists making on-air appearances and performing at shows promoted by iHeartRadio syndicates. Many artists will opt for fewer stops in larger markets along the iHeartRadio trail, leaving Cincinnati off their travel plan, he says.

But not all. Duesing says the variety of venues catering to different audiences and different musical styles makes Cincinnati an alluring destination for touring acts. The ecosystem of venues supports musicians’ career trajectory, boasting both places for artists to perform when they’re a nascent star and steps up in venues to host visits as their fame climbs.

“We can have somebody play in a 400-seat room, and they can jump up to 1,000-seat rooms, and then they can jump to 2,700, and then they can get to 4,000,” says Duesing. “So it’s nice to have all those different levels because we can follow the progression of an artist.”

Cincinnati: A musical city

Music venues around the city have seemingly arrived at the consensus that competition is a healthy aspect of the business that empowers the music scene and gives concertgoers a good problem to have: choice.

A total of 932 concerts and performance arts events were held in Cincinnati in 2021, rocketing to 1,461 in 2022 and currently sitting at 870 through August of 2023, according to data collected by PredictHQ and provided by

Randie Adam, vice president of marketing and visitor experience at Visit Cincy. “Competition is good, right? That means the area is going to get a lot of shows, especially with two very new venues. A lot of shows are coming to the market that maybe wouldn’t have before,” says McClellan.

Any given night serves up a diverse offering of things to do, from live music, sporting events, bars and restaurants. While increased entertainment options pose exciting opportunities for many, the emergence of new sites has posed some issues for long-established venues.

Since opening in May 2021, TQL Stadium has heightened traffic and parking concerns for its neighbor, Music Hall, whenever the venues host events at the same time.

“We’re just now feeling the effects of having a stadium and a historic theater next to each other, and the audiences are trying to adjust to being at the same place at the same time. We’re making it, together, as neighbors and partners,”

Duesing tells CityBeat.

But logistical hurdles don’t detract from the real prize: the city’s entertainment industry is booming.

Options for entertainment are again cementing Cincinnati as a tourist destination. In 2021, a year that was at least partially dampened by the pandemic, Cincinnati’s overnight visitors spent $182 million on recreation and entertainment — 14% of their total expenditures, according to data provided by Adams. This figure is inching steadily toward the $223 million high achieved by Cincinnati in 2017.

Curl, contemplating how the ecosystem of large music venues in Cincinnati has changed since the pandemic, recalls a night in May 2022. The Who played at TQL Stadium in front of a packed crowd, while Paycor Stadium filled up to see Garth Brooks. Two crowds, each containing tens of thousands of people, convened at separate locations on the same night. Curl believes this example is a testament to the big potential for business that exists in Cincinnati. Despite the new, unexpected obstacles presented by the pandemic, the results speak for themselves: give the people what they want, and the crowds will come.