Tampa Bay's live music scene is very much alive, but venues of all sizes face challenges to their wellbeing

In the hours after the second ever conference for the National Independent Venue Association in Washington D.C., Tom DeGeorge looks relieved and rested. In the nation’s capital, he and his NIVA cohorts have come together with lawmakers to discuss how they can use their might to improve the concert going experience.

This is the group, after all, that lobbied congress for the $15 billion Save Our Stages (SOS) package that buoyed the live entertainment industry during the pandemic shut down when small rooms across the U.S. where the first to close and last to open.

A big topic at NIVA ‘23 was Fix the Tix, nascent legislation that advocates for legal remediation to predatory ticketing practices. SOS helped venues survive, and in D.C., NIVA leaders saw Fix the Tix as a way independent venues can thrive. And while he’s 900 miles away from his Ybor City venue, home is top of mind for DeGeorge.
In 2021, the landlord gave Crowbar a five-year extension, so his room now has an expiration date. DeGeorge wants to get to the 20th anniversary at the end of that lease. In past conversations, he’s admitted that circumstances like insurance (Crowbar’s has gone from $17,000 to $30,000 over the last year, for a “crappy policy”), secondary ticketing with algorithms and tactics that evolved during the COVID years, and rising rents are obstacles that keep him from getting to 2026.

“We’re getting crushed from every angle,” DeGeorge told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.

But he’s optimistic. He told CL that he would sit and break bread with Ybor City developer Darryl Shaw because there might be real opportunities for well-funded entities to cooperate with, and ensure a real future for, indie venues. At the end of the day, the goal is to create a live music experience that endears a music lover to their city and scene.
Eight stops away on the TECO Trolley, the team inside Amalie Arena also deals, albeit on a different scale, with insurance issues and evolved third-party ticketing systems. But that group still works just as hard to create a meaningful concert experience for thousands who call Tampa Bay home.

“We're always thinking about what's next,” Kelli Yeloushan, Senior Director of Event Management for Vinik Sports Group, which runs Amalie, told CL.

Her room just hosted Peso Pluma, an enigmatic artist who has reinvented romantic corrido music for a generation (Z) that’s been defined by social media, COVID, and all the anxiety that comes with them. Pluma, who is on the July cover of Billboard magazine, is inarguably driving the astronomical growth of Mexican music in the U.S. And while Amalie works with Live Nation and AEG on many of its shows, the Pluma gig was executed with an independent promoter.

K-pop, which hasn’t arrived in a big way for the Bay area, is on Yeloushan’s mind.

“We’re an open room. We want to bring the artists, and have content, and a busy schedule that's diverse programming for everyone,” Yeloushan—who’s worked her way up the ladder at VSG—added.

“Having every show come to Tampa is our goal,” she said, even if it’s not in one of her rooms.

Yeloushan knows Amalie and Yuengling Center, both under the VSG umbrella, are thriving, and attributes that success to how much the region has been turned on its head. “We are a completely different city after COVID, the Tampa DNA has changed,” she added.

And while the tiniest of Tampa Bay venues will always be the best place to really get to love a scene, they face problems, too. Lately, at least for two of them, it’s been noise complaints. A neighbor recently called the cops on Tampa Heights bar Shuffle during a Tuesday night acoustic emo show, and across the Bay, Dunedin Brewery is feeling the pain of rapid growth for the neighborhood it’s called home for nearly three decades.
Dunedin’s noise ordinance was crafted when the town was a sleepy beach village with very few bars. Now, it’s one of the busiest little places where you can still smell the ocean within city limits. While Dunedin Brewery used to exist mostly by its lonesome in a dark corner, condos have popped up around it. And while Dunedin Brewery was there before the apartments, a small segment of residents attracted to the city seem to have forgotten that their new digs were built next to an increasingly lively entertainment district that preceded them.

Dunedin Brewery recently got its first sound ordinance violation.

“Unfortunately the venue does not get fined, but our lead staff member was fined $300 without being given a chance to rectify our violation of 0.2db over the limit of 65db,” Michael Bryant, General Manager and co-owner of Dunedin Brewery told CL.

Bryant’s been booking free concerts at Dunedin Brewery since 2010; before him, the space hosted shows as far back as 2001 when Sean DeLong would play on Fridays—the only day the brewery was open to the public. Over the years, giants of jazz’s new school, as well as local bands of all genres, have shared the stage at Dunedin Brewery.

Pinellas Sheriff's officers tasked with enforcing the law are just doing their job, Bryant said, adding that the cops understand that Dunedin Brewery is in a bar district that can be noisy, even past midnight. “Our biggest concern or threat as a historic independent venue is gentrification through an amnesia of place,” added.

Bryant is unsure how the ordinance will play out, but like the Crowbars and Amalie Arenas of the world, he is taking it day by day, and hoping that concertgoers native and otherwise can get behind both indie venues and bigger ones. Together, we might have a shot at changing this scene for the better after all.

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