Parish is Moving!

No worries – we’re still doing shows at the current location for summer and fall. And our sister club, Empire Garage and Control Room, will be rocking as usual. We plan to find a new home for Parish by the end of the year.

Here’s the story:

We rent Parish. It’s an amazing facility with a fantastic landlord. The rent is fair for the building and the neighborhood, but it’s too much for a small independent music venue like us to break even. 

This is a city-wide problem: The cost to access high-quality creative spaces for performing arts is too high for a community that depends on them to make art and music for a living. This is the second time Parish has had to move in the past five years, and many other spaces in town are facing the same challenges we are.

Independent venues matter. They are the coral reef of the creative ecosystem that nurtures every artist at the beginning of their professional careers. They are also what makes Austin the Live Music Capital of the World. They are a platform for all the alt, weird, new, and interesting culture that isn’t supported by the mainstream, or at least not yet ;-). 

When you buy a ticket to a local show at an independent venue like Parish or Empire, that money stays in our community, supporting local artists, the production team, and the hospitality team. For example, when you buy a $20 ticket, most of that goes to the band. We have to somehow cover all our other costs with profit from the bar. Even if everyone buys a drink (and most people don’t these days), we only make $1-3 per drink. That means a sold-out show of 350 people might leave only $800 to pay the bills. Your ticket purchase supports the artist; your drinks keep the venue alive. And it’s not enough. This is why independent venues are closing across the country. 

In the face of rising real estate costs and changing consumer behavior, we have to find new ways to support the stages and the amazing teams around them. We are grateful to have a creative, talented team that produces beautiful, safe evenings for you. We care about the art, the sound, the light, the fun. But pay and benefits aren’t what they should be. The people who give you a great night out deserve proper careers, with a fair wage, so they can raise a family in the community where they work. We could raise prices, but our mission is to support our music community, ALL of it, and that means keeping ticket prices and drink prices accessible. We just can’t do that in our current location.

A few months ago, The City of Austin’s Rally Austin program very generously helped us complete our purchase of Empire Garage. We’re grateful for this every day, because we don’t have to worry about moving. It’s a great deal for the city too – this wasn’t a grant, it was a standard interest-rate mortgage that is profitable for the city. Programs like Rally Austin can truly save independent arts venues and the communities they anchor in Austin and around the country. 

Since ancient times, opera houses and amphitheaters have been the heart of a city. We still do it for some kinds of traditional or corporate music. But we need to do it for the kind of music most of us listen to, and we need to have spaces for the next generation or artists to thrive. 

We continue to fight for and support our music community, and we will see you at the show!