In search of a cultural wonderland: Vancouver’s venue dilemma

By Sarah Buchanan & Mark Pickersgill
Photos by Mark Pickersgill

Allow yourself to imagine, for a moment, that music nerds have taken over Vancouver’s city hall. The hallways vibrate with the sound of lunch-hour jam sessions. Council meetings begin with a full gospel choir. For a brief time we forget about building Olympic villages and bold steps are taken to revitalize and support the city’s independent performance spaces.

The Granville Entertainment District, initially conceived as a playground of concentrated nightlife, is the first to change. An actual neighbourhood replaces the mega-nightclubs of yore, now memorialized in a series of sculptures depicting frat boys in embarrassing poses. A diverse array of small multi-purpose performance spaces are supported throughout the city, instead of being crammed into entertainment districts and forced to the margins.

Perhaps even neighbours in vibrant areas of the city who complain of noisy music shows are placed on a bus to one of Vancouver’s sleepy bedroom communities. After suffering their cultural exodus, our cranky compatriots might then return to Vancouver starving for noisy art. Having existed on a diet of reality TV and Robert Bateman prints just long enough to become traumatized, they begin to see the need to support artist-run centres throughout the city.

Naturally this is a utopic, if not somewhat absurd, vision of Vancouver. Music nerds will never take over City Hall, and cranky neighbours will probably remain cranky forever. But the implications of such a dream are clear: independent music and cultural spaces in this city face an upward battle.

Vancouver’s civic policies and socio-economic forces have actively discouraged innovative art from developing into anything more than an underground scene. Given such an immense and complex problem, would our cultural utopia begin by pouring money into solutions?

“I don’t think so,” says Mirae, a member of a network of Vancouver’s artist-run spaces called The Tipping Point. “What I imagine is that individual groups would have more resources, so they could facilitate spaces they find, and stay in those spaces. There would be more variety. To me that’s what culture is….allowing things to exist…and facilitating these things.”

“If you want to look at ideal spaces, look at The Sugar Refinery, or the first Blim,” claims fellow group member Jesse, referring to two former local venues whose popularity defied both spatial challenges (awkwardly laid out, messy, or hidden up long flights of stairs) and legal staus (both had questionable legitimacy in the eyes of the law as perfomance spaces). But they held a spark that many more lucrative venues don’t. Both became victims of their own success, and closed primarily because they became too popular.

This story, with minor variations, has repeated itself all too often. Perhaps we need to realize that the popularity of these spaces represents a need, and not a problem. The question remains as to how we can address this need while still making sure the spaces are safe, accessible and interesting.

A first step might be to think outside of the box a little. Resources do not necessarily have to come in the form of grants and funding. A better thought might be to view resources as simply a function of time, effort, care and better communication. Resulting from discussions with various venue operators throughout Vancouver, we have compiled and created an idyllic wish-list of programs, policy changes, and civic mind-shifts that aim to address Vancouver’s venue dilemma. The list is far from exhaustive, and there are certainly a number of items that may be undercooked, but it ultimately touches upon some real needs in our artistic community.

1. Diversified revenue streams for venues
It would certainly be something if venues and spaces were able to generate significant revenue beyond off-hand liquor sales and cover charges. No question many spaces attempt this, however success requires not only a commitment on the part of venue operators, but also flexibility in regulations. Storefront spaces, community membership and funding, educational programs, festivals, and space/equipment rentals are all examples of how venues could all explore extra and often much needed revenue sources once under operation.

2. Organizational support to ensure long-term stability and continuity of space
Collective excitement over new and interesting spaces inevitably pushes them beyond what the community and often the spaces themselves can handle, generating noise complaints, burnt-out staff, and often preventable regulatory crackdowns. “It’s hard to get past a five-year plan when you’re always fighting brushfires,” says Jesse. “As romantic as it might be, nobody who runs a space really wants to have to sweat and toil to the point where they can’t enjoy their own events.” We need more infrastructural support and understanding, which could start simply with a mentoring program between successful, legitimate spaces and underground upstarts trying to go legit.

3. Regulations and bylaws that are attuned to the realities of operating spaces
We could begin by rethinking and retooling the many outdated regulations that unfairly restrict live music and cultural spaces. For example, small venues are often bound by parking requirements based on capacity and venue size. Considering Vancouver’s attempts to become a “sustainable” city, coupled with the generally car-less demographic of the clientele of many small spaces, the logic seems counter intuitive. For proof, officials simply need to find the pile of bicycles locked up next to any performance space on a Friday night.

Some small changes in regulations and simple bylaw definitions can have profound impacts. Before a zoning bylaw change for restaurants in 2005, amplified live music and ensembles were prohibited from performing in restaurants and “food primary” locations. Rocking out at a place like Hoko’s Sushi without special permission was a challenge and, for all intents and purposes, illegal. Thanks to efforts on the part of City staff and the foresight of former City Councilor Jim Green, the outdated restriction on music in restaurants was amended. Naturally, some restrictions still apply, but the bylaw change indicated a positive first step.

4. Solve the Licensing Woes
The amount of time and money new spaces spend waiting for appropriate licenses can be devastating. The time between application and the granting of a business and/or liquor license can be months, if not years. Liquor licensing is a messy and complex affair that is ultimately under Provincial jurisdiction, but there is room for the City to enact appropriate policies. Perhaps fast-tracked, probationary, or temporary licenses could be arranged for startup spaces to sell alcohol only on limited occasions. And perhaps business licenses might better reflect the realities and needs of performance spaces and venues.

5. An effective way for venue operators and the artistic community to organize and share information
Power is knowledge, but this is an instance where knowledge can really only come about with some concerted effort. An informed and organized voice (or voices) would go a long way in advocating for policy change, funding and support. This task may be like herding cats, but virtually everyone has some valuable experiences and knowledge to share. A wiki for venue operators containing pertinent info and discussion forums could be a start.

6. A “champion” or a liaison within the City administration to help navigate red tape and the political minefields
Not only would a municipal liaison be helpful for those wanting to work within City regulations, but having a champion within, say, the city planning department, could be instrumental in building institutional knowledge and addressing sensitive political areas. The potential benefits such a liaison or champion could have in helping spaces to operate legitimately, could be immense.

7. Greater support for all-ages spaces
Kids just want to rock. While there have been a number of places that have willingly hosted the occasional all-ages show, Vancouver lacks a well defined all-ages culture, and more specifically, a well supported all-ages space for kids and the young at heart to rock out. There are great benefits (present and future) in allowing the young-uns to bring the rock in a way that is accessible, supportive, innovative and encouraging.

8. Foster a Culture of Tolerance and Respect
It works two ways: Vancouverites need to take on the responsibility of developing and fostering communities that are respectful and tolerant. Conversely, the powers-that-be also need to respect that sometimes a little noise can be a good thing. Vancouver’s often puritanical views on nighttime revelry can make this more problematic than it would seem, but it is a balance that needs to be realized.

9. Fostering a Culture of Support
Why are we so negative all the time? It is about time Vancouverites start extolling the virtues of the spaces, people, and activities that make this city great. Write letters, show support, and highlight the positive.

Simply throwing money at Vancouver’s art scene and venues is, ultimately, not a sustainable solution – even if there were an abundance of funds to be thrown in the first place. A truly creative culture must be artist-driven, and policy (while something of a necessary evil) cannot be heavy handed. Success simply means that City policies, artist’s needs, entrepreneurial opportunities, and community expectations need to be part of a reflexive and communicative system.

This approach has been successful in other cities. After public outrage against Seattle’s “Teen Dance Ordinance,” a 1987 law restricting the mixing of people of different ages where there is dancing or music, the city formed a task force to address lack of youth access to music. Venues were closing their doors in droves, and the situation looked grim (sound familiar?). This task force led to the birth of the Vera project, and a city-funded space for youth to develop and perform music.

Such communication is not happening in Vancouver, at least on the level that it should. A strange separation still exists between our cultural spaces. We have large City sanctioned spaces for “gentrified” art, like the VAG, the Orpheum, and the Queen Elizabeth theatre. We also have large commercial music venues like the Commodore, which depend on huge amounts of capital, resulting in high-ticket prices and six-dollar beer. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the rotating cast of small dive bars in the Downtown Eastside (one of the only neighbourhoods that has been receptive to providing space for emerging music), which fall in and out of fashion every month, and the underground warehouse spaces, struggling to stay under the radar while still attracting an audience. This subtly reinforces a divide between stable, “mature” art, and the transitory emerging arts, which are forced into marginal spaces on the periphery.

“It’s kind of a catch-22,” claims Mirae. “People are throwing all these parties in all these shitty spaces just to keep them open, and it creates a culture of destruction, where people think they can show up and act like (messed up) rock stars. It doesn’t serve the purpose of the art they’re creating.”

Despite the image of these spaces as places to party, many wish there was a way to create a more “adult” scene among emerging artists without having to rely on grants. Organizations like The Tipping Point are a good way to allow spaces to look past the parties, brushfires, and short-term solutions inherent in running small performance spaces. Small organizations can band together, perhaps in the hope of someday buying a building – a step which has allowed spaces like The Western Front to plan farther into the future and resist the inevitable wave of gentrification. Ironically, this gentrification is often what drives emerging artists from the neighbourhoods they originally made fashionable. In ten years, when Powell Street is drowning in “artist lofts,” will any actual artists still be around?

Although it may not be apparent on the surface, there are a lot of people doing a lot of really interesting and unique things in spaces all over Vancouver. If we plan to support this culture, facilitate what already exists, and let it flourish, we must do more than watch helplessly as artists are pushed from one marginalized space to another.

So this is a call Vancouver: Pull up your socks, lay down your cynicism, and let’s find some ways to stop killing the party.