Chris Lotten
The November 2018 Smashing Pumpkins concert was one of a number of sold-out shows at The Sylvee since it opened last September.
It’s been about eight months since FPC Live threw open the doors to The Sylvee, the concert production company’s new 2,500-capacity venue off East Washington Avenue. And in that time, not much has gone wrong for FPC Live’s concert-venue centerpiece.
Outside of some flooding issues that briefly threatened some of the venue’s earliest shows back in September 2018, an unexpected cancellation of an Avenged Sevenfold show that was supposed to serve as The Sylvee’s soft opening, and a thwarted burglary attempt at the facility in April, The Sylvee has been exceeding expectations, at least as far as FPC is concerned.
According to Justin Kibbel, FPC’s Sylvee rep, the venue has notched 27 sellouts so far, with a couple more upcoming shows edging close to that mark. Through this week, close to 120,000 tickets have been sold.
But more than numbers, The Sylvee has largely delivered on one of its biggest initial promises — bringing acts to Madison that would have otherwise passed us by. Matt Gerding, one of FPC Live’s triad of presidents, points to a long list of acts that would likely have skipped Madison without The Sylvee in place — everything from Smashing Pumpkins to Ghost and Vampire Weekend, who just finished playing a sold-out Sylvee show earlier this week.
“Having this shiny new toy allows us to proactively attract acts,” Gerding says. In fact, Vampire Weekend specifically requested to play the venue, instead of being part of FPC Live’s summer Breese Stevens Field lineup.
While The Sylvee is thriving, other parts of the FPC music venue kingdom are still working on finding their footing in the new world order. (Thanks to a consolidation and purchasing spree last year, FPC currently owns or operates The Sylvee, the Majestic and the High Noon Saloon. It also operates the Orpheum through a lease with Live Nation, the national concert conglomerate that owns a majority stake in FPC Live.) As expected, the Orpheum Theater on State Street has shifted away from a venue that mostly hosts music events to one that’s now hosting a mix of music, touring stand-up comedy, book tours and weddings/events. Since the Sylvee opened, the Orpheum has hosted 45 events — an average of just more than five a month — and three book-related events have been canceled.
That last development hasn’t gone unnoticed by State Street’s business community. “You’re seeing less programming,” says Jason Ilstrup, president of Downtown Madison Inc. “That, in any situation, is going to have a detrimental effect. By the same token, it’s clear The Sylvee has had a tremendous effect on downtown.”
Charlie Goldstone, another of FPC Live’s presidents, is as aware as anyone of the shift. He says FPC Live and chief Orpheum booker Tag Evers are still trying to discover what works and what doesn’t in the venue.
“Bands are going to play where they want to play, fans will go where they want to go, and every venue will find its niche,” says Goldstone. “It’s hard to convince somebody to play a room where they don’t have the things they need.”
Seats are the one advantage the Orpheum still holds over The Sylvee, a mostly standing-only venue where the only seating options include a couple of rows of premium seating on the second floor, the row of third-floor suites, and a couple of benches in the far back on the first floor. Goldstone points to an acoustic Jason Mraz show the Orpheum hosted last fall as an example of the kind of music-based programming that can still work in the older venue.
As for The Sylvee, Gerding suggests that, in addition to a steady lineup of national acts, there may be an increase in themed events like the Great Gatsby-themed New Year’s Eve Bash, or fashion shows paired with concerts.
“We’d like to boost that kind of business,” he says. “We’ll see what’s possible from a concert perspective.”
