The Challenge of Venues

One of the biggest challenges facing event promoters in today's street dance culture is securing venues for events. In Los Angeles, that's half of the battle. While our city is more spread out than New York, finding a desirable venue is tough because many club venues like the Avalon and the Henry Fonda/Music Box Theatre in Hollywood are expensive. Even the most prolific event promoters like Cros One of Freestyle Session had to take his event from the Long Beach Aqua Dome to the neighboring Queen Mary boat in 2004 due to complications with the city officials. For smaller-scale promoters, it's equally challenging because you want to find a venue that has good parking, isn't too far for your audience to drive to, and is affordable within your means. As they say, location, location, location.

Finding a place which has good air conditioning and ventilation is key. Lighting and good power sources are other considerations. Plus proximity to nearby gas stations and restaurants can be helpful especially if dancers want to grab something quick. You also want to secure a venue that has decent sound-proofing so your music doesn't bother the neighbors. It sucks when they have to call the cops to shut down your event. These are all technical considerations to keep in mind.

How easy it would be to have a regular secure location for every event. Los Angeles is a city of transition. There always seems to be a free flow of people in and out of LA, all pursuing different dreams and encountering various realities. New York may be the city that never sleeps. But Los Angeles is the city that never stops moving. Even during the hours of high traffic. What's hard is when we don't have that secure location to build a foundation for our events. Imagine if we did. It would be much easier to direct human traffic to the event so folks don't have to constantly look up addresses for the jam they're going to. They'd know the venue by heart based on past experiences. Familiarity can breed a sense of community because we know what to expect. In a culture which is often defined by fluidity, we could benefit from a little stability. And a lot more organization.

But perhaps that's the nature of life in Los Angeles. Always constantly being in motion. Is there a creative way that we can problem solve the venue issue?