How Sid the Cat Auditorium Plans to Redefine the 500-Cap Experience for Artists and Fans in L.A.

In South Pasadena, a long-dormant schoolhouse auditorium is astir to get a 2nd beingness arsenic a caller autarkic euphony venue.

Sid the Cat Auditorium, slated to unfastened wrong the adjacent 2 months, takes its sanction from co-founder Kyle Wilkerson’s precocious cat, Sid — a favored remembered arsenic overmuch for his chill demeanor arsenic his longevity. “He passed distant conscionable earlier the pandemic astatine astir 15,” Wilkerson says. “He lives connected with the marque and the shows we do. He was a peculiar cat.”

For Wilkerson and concern partners Brandon Gonzalez and Sean Newman, the venue represents a culmination of 10 years of gathering Sid the Cat Presents, their autarkic performance promotion company. Since 2015, the duo has booked shows astatine much than 70 antithetic Los Angeles-area spaces, from women’s clubs to churches, often hauling successful dependable systems themselves. The caller abstraction yet gives them a imperishable location basal — and the accidental to power their ain calendar. “We’re inactive going to enactment with different venues, but this is our baby,” says Wilkerson.

The gathering lodging Sid the Cat Auditorium was primitively constructed arsenic 1 of South Pasadena’s archetypal ground-level schools and aboriginal converted into a section schoolhouse district’s medication offices. Its auditorium, erstwhile utilized for pupil performances, hadn’t hosted a amusement since 1979. Now, aft a cautious restoration, it’s being repurposed arsenic a 500-capacity unrecorded euphony venue with an adjacent bar, 2 greenish rooms and an outdoor patio.

The 500-capacity country retains its historical charm, including a proscenium signifier measuring 35 feet crossed and 21 feet heavy and precocious rediscovered ceiling murals by aboriginal 20th-century creator Lucille Lloyd. “Everyone thought the murals were gone, but we recovered them astir a twelvemonth and a fractional ago,” Gonzalez says. “They’re the lone 4 left.”

The venue volition besides diagnostic 3 modular barroom locations and an casual load-in ramp straight onto the signifier — each uncommon luxuries for a abstraction this size. Outside, the tract offers astir 150 parking spots and sits conscionable steps from the Metro A Line, making it accessible from crossed Los Angeles.

Sound has been a precedence from time one. Rat Sound, the institution led by seasoned technologist Dave Rat, is overseeing the installation of an L-Acoustics loudspeaker strategy designed to rival larger rooms. “We deliberation this is going to beryllium 1 of the champion 500-cap rooms successful the country,” Wilkerson says.

Just arsenic important is accessibility for fans. The venue volition run arsenic an all-ages country — a rarity successful L.A., wherever 21-and-over policies dominate. “We privation radical coming present implicit decades, not conscionable 1 night,” Wilkerson explains. “Maybe their archetypal amusement is present erstwhile they’re 17, and they’re inactive coming backmost astatine 47.”

Ticketing volition beryllium handled by Dice, chosen for its anti-scalping policies. Wilkerson says the concern has already proven itself during smaller shows, wherever secondary marketplace resale was virtually eliminated. Average summons prices volition hover astir $25, keeping the absorption connected emerging endowment and established acts looking for an intimate setting

The determination to enactment autarkic was deliberate, Wilkerson tells Billboard. As Live Nation and AEG proceed to consolidate power of mid-sized and ample venues, fewer operators are opening 500-cap rooms. “It’s ne'er been harder to unfastened a venue than it is close now,” Wilkerson says. “The economics person changed, and a batch of independents person been swallowed up. But we’re committed to remaining autarkic forever. That’s successful our DNA.”

That ethos extends to booking. “We’re intentional astir everything we book,” Gonzalez says. “If we don’t judge successful the art, it won’t beryllium connected our stage.”

The surrounding assemblage has embraced the project, seeing it arsenic an alternate to concatenation restaurants and big-box redevelopment. “South Pasadena is an creator community. They privation a tiny concern successful this space,” Wilkerson says. “Every neighbour we’ve talked to is excited astir having unrecorded euphony successful walking distance.”

They program to run six nights a week, with programming that stretches beyond concerts to see comedy, podcasts and mini-festivals. On acheronian nights, the barroom volition inactive rotation vinyl for the neighborhood.

For Gonzalez, who grew up successful adjacent El Sereno, and Wilkerson, who moved to L.A. from Texas 16 years ago, the venue is the realization of a imagination aft renting different venues and gathering their concern 1 amusement astatine a time. “We’ve virtually done this the hardest mode imaginable — rent...