Chicago played the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre in its inaugural summer last year. Due to the coronavirus, one show planned this summer at the venue has been canceled, one has been postponed and two other events are uncertain. Submitted photo / Bob Jadloski

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While many Ohio businesses reopened last week and restaurants are preparing to seat customers indoors this week, concert venues still are waiting for some indication about when live music will return.

“There’s no way we’re doing sold-out shows this year,” said Nate Offerdahl, owner of the Westside Bowl in Youngstown. “It’s not happening. Anyone who thinks we are just isn’t paying attention.”

Tom Simpson, who has owned The Kent Stage since 2002 and, along with Sunrise Entertainment, books acts for the Robins Theatre in downtown Warren, said, “We were the first to close, and we’ll be the last to open.”

After the outbreak of COVID-19, orders limiting the size of public gatherings shut down concert venues in the state and around the country in March. Other area promoters are more optimistic than Offerdahl about when they’ll be allowed to return, but eight-week payroll protection plans won’t be enough to save businesses that fear it could be closer to eight months before they can operate at full capacity.

“I’ve been in the business for almost 20 years and have never seen anything like this,” said Ken Bigley, vice president of JAC Live / JAC Management, which operates the Covelli Centre, the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre and Packard Music Hall. “After 9/11, there was a major stoppage for a short period of time, but nothing to this extent.”

To call attention to the unique needs of the concert industry, promoters and venues have joined forces to form the National Independent Venue Association. JAC Live, Westside Bowl, Robins Theatre and The Kent Stage all are members.

NIVA is lobbying Congress to provide federal assistance to independent venues while the pandemic continues, and its members are urging their patrons to contact their elected officials.

“The backbone of this industry is independent and regional promoters,” Bigley said. “These aren’t $100-million-a-year companies. These are guys just making a living, and the NIVA is trying to draw attention to that.”

Offerdahl opened Westside Bowl two years ago, starting with a smaller performance space in the basement and eliminating several bowling lanes to create larger space on the main level that could accommodate as many as 500 concertgoers.

He agrees with actions taken by Gov. Mike DeWine; if anything Offerdahl believes the restrictions are being lifted too soon. But he also believes the state and federal governments have some responsibility to the businesses that followed those orders.

“We were poised to have a fantastic year and then we were completely shut down,” he said. “We were functioning and liquid, and you shut us down. On some level, you have to make us whole.”

Offerdahl has kept cash flow at Westside Bowl by emphasizing and growing his carryout food business. But he worries about other similar-sized venues such as the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern and The Grog Shop in Greater Cleveland or The Auricle in Canton, which don’t have that option.

Many venues won’t be able to survive an extended closure.

“There was a survey I participated in,” Simpson said. “A thousand or so filled it out. Forty-five percent said they couldn’t make it three months, and 90 percent said they couldn’t make it six months.”

Having a strong network of venues is important to everyone.

“Bands don’t just come to Warren or come to Kent,” Simpson said. “They have a stop before and a stop after as part of a tour. If those venues go down, it will be hard to sustain what we’re doing (at the Robins and the Kent Stage).”

MAKING CHANGES

Just as restaurants are reconfiguring their dining rooms to meet current guidelines, venues and promoters will need to make changes once restrictions are lifted.

Ken Haidaris, president of Sunrise Entertainment, said many of the amenities that were part of the renovation of the Robins Theatre will be beneficial in a post-COVID world.

“Everything in the bathrooms is touchless — the toilets, the sinks, the paper towel dispensers,” Haidaris said.

Those are the kinds of changes Simpson said he would like to make at the Kent Stage, and low-interest loans available from the state and / or federal government would make it easier to implement those improvements.

All of the venues are canceling and rescheduling events. Simpson is in the process of postponing his June slate in Kent. The Robins schedule has been cleared until August and probably will reopen by showing movies as a low-risk, less-expensive way to gauge consumers’ comfort level with public gatherings.

Of the four shows announced by mid-March at the Youngstown amphitheater, one has been canceled (Steve Miller), one has been postponed (Michael Stanley & the Resonators) and two currently remain (Tedeschi Trucks Band in July and the Beach Boys in August).

The Covelli Centre has comedian Jim Gaffigan in August and Judas Priest in September. The Impractical Jokers still is listed for June 20 at the arena but increasingly seems unlikely.

And JAC’s biggest concert of the year — Y Live at Stambaugh Stadium with country superstar Luke Bryan — was moved on Friday from June 13 to Memorial Day weekend 2021.

At Packard Music Hall, Jamey Johnson is on his second date (June 26) and may need a third. A Warren Civic Music Association concert (Divas3) already is on its third date.

“The timeline, it’s constantly changing,” Bigley said. “It’s like a stockbroker constantly watching the ticker. You’re trying to take in so much that’s out there, keeping up as much as possible on how the government says it’s going to open and trying to figure out the public’s thought process. We don’t have an exact date.”

Once venues get the go-ahead to operate at full capacity, promoters can’t book twice as many shows to make up for the lost revenue. No one is sure how quickly the economy will recover from the shutdowns, and the economy in the Mahoning Valley was lagging behind much of the country before the virus.

Simpson said he may increase the number of shows he does in Kent, but he would be careful not to book too many shows in the same genre too close together.

Bigley said he’s been to bigger markets like Nashville and looked at the marquee, and it would say KISS on Monday and Bon Jovi on Tuesday and Luke Bryan on Wednesday.

“We can’t do that many shows in a row, we can’t have that many high-ticket price shows,” Bigley said. “If we oversaturate the market, it’s a bad move on many levels.”

agray@tribtoday.com