‘Live music matters to what we are as a city and who we are.’ Here‘s how to keep music live

Bellingham is an amazing city that doesn’t quite feel like itself right now. For me, it’s eerily quiet. As the owner and talent buyer of the Wild Buffalo House of Music for over 12 years, I work tirelessly to bring entertainment to our community and give local artists an opportunity to craft their skills.

Our live music venues closed on March 15 at the start of the pandemic shutdowns. While we’re dark, rent is due, insurance payments go on, we can’t bring our employees back to work, and musicians don’t have stages to make an income.

Venues were the first to close and will understandably be the last to open, and they won’t reopen without your help.

Live performances draw people to our communities. The Wild Buffalo opening in downtown brought new customers to the Arts District downtown. I would run around each week and bring our music schedule to the neighborhood bars and restaurants so they could staff accordingly – the busiest nights were those with a concert at the Buffalo.

When patrons come to the Buffalo or the Shakedown or any of Bellingham’s amazing venues, they dine at local restaurants, stay at our hotels, and shop at our local retail stores. Each event patron spends an average of $32 in the local economy, that’s on top of admission price. Most years, we average right around 13,000 tickets purchased by customers that live at least 35 miles away from Bellingham, many of which are Canadian, and bring their dollars to spend in our community when they come to see live music.

Musicians make a living on these stages — touring and performance can be 70% to 90% of a musician’s income as the majority of ticket sales go directly to them. For up-and-coming artists, small stages are where they get their start.

What will happen to our venue space if The Wild Buffalo shutters? It won’t become another venue (who would make that rash choice now anyway?!), it will become something else, an office space or residential space. Our landlords have been supportive of us, but they’ve got a mortgage and bills too.

Small, independently-owned live music venues are small businesses, we’re full of hustle and grit. But we can’t wait anymore, hoping the federal government or the state recognizes the huge ecosystem and economic engine that venues represent. The Paycheck Protection Program, which has been great for some industries, is designed to protect payroll — without events, we don’t have payroll. It’s just not made to support the performing arts and other small businesses that can’t fully reopen until crowds are safer.

We’re going to have to rely on our community to survive and bring a future with live music. So far you have been amazing.

A group of music lovers statewide has joined together to create Keep Music Live, a fundraising campaign to save hometown, community-based music venues with the capacity of fewer than 1,000 guests. In partnership with the Whatcom Community Foundation, which has graciously advised the group and put up with hundreds of questions, this grassroots effort wants Washington to have a future where the culture, identity and joy of live music is very much part of our state.

In the 12 years that I have owned the venue, the Buffalo has had artists like Macklemore and Allen Stone on our stage and Odesza played their very first show here. We’ve hosted multiple benefit shows for various causes, seen proposals, weddings and first dates. There’s a reason we call small venues “rooms” – it’s intimate, it’s up close, and it’s about connecting. Live music matters to what we are as a city and who we are. We hope you’ll join us and Keep Music Live.