Despite the rain, a few dozen people have lined up a few hours early outside the State Theatre in downtown Portland on a recent Sunday evening. They're all vying for a prime spot to see the indie rock band Bright Eyes.
Gwyneth Esty-Kendall made the trip from Bangor for the show. She said she comes to Portland frequently for live music. And she said she wouldn't mind if plans to build a mid-sized music venue about a half-mile down Congress Street pans out.
"[The] more shows the better," she said. "I feel like this has been a really good space, and I love the State Theatre for the really intimate space that it provides. But I think having other, bigger theaters for other shows would be great too."
A group of developers, which includes Scarborough-based Mile Marker Investments and Live Nation, are pitching the city of Portland on a new music venue.
The proposed Portland Music Hall would have a capacity for roughly 3,300 people. Developers say it would fill what some see as a gap in southern Maine's live music scene. But Portland's independent music and arts operators are fearful that a project run by the world's largest concert promotion company will ultimately change the city's character.
'Portland was underserved'
The Portland Music Hall would attract artists who are too big for the State Theatre and Merrill Auditorium, which can both accommodate roughly 1,900 people, or too small for the Cross Insurance Arena, where concerts vary in size but can hold up to 9,000 people.
"Our experience told us that clearly, Portland was underserved," said Don Law, a longtime concert promoter and chairman of Live Nation New England. "There was a hole in the market for a venue this size."
He said other cities have seen success with similarly sized venues including Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Boston, where Live Nation opened the MGM Music Hall at Fenway three years ago.
"Every time this has happened, the market expands," he said. "More artists come. It stimulates the economy, generally, and it has always been positive."
Live Nation predicts the new venue will host 125 events a year. And Law said it will give Portland restaurants and businesses a boost, especially during weeknights in the off-season.
The project is meant to complement Portland's existing venues, not compete with them, Live Nation said.
Local performing arts groups and venue operators disagree.
"We all live and die on the tickets we sell in Portland," said Aimée Petrin, who runs Portland Ovations. The non-profit hosts performances at Merrill Auditorium, which is across the street from the proposed Portland Music Hall.
"These non-profits and local independently owned and operated venues all live and die on what happens here in Portland, and reinvest that money back into Portland," she said. "This venue does not need our money. It won't leave the money locally. It will take the money out with it."
Live Nation brings in more than $32 billion in revenue each year. It owns, operates and has exclusive booking rights for nearly 400 venues around the world.
Last year, it was sued by the Justice Department and attorneys general from 40 states, who accuse Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster of monopolizing the concert industry, from artists promotion and touring deals, to ticketing and merchandise.
Law said he doesn't believe there will be much overlap between venues in Portland. The Portland Music Hall won't have Broadway or symphony performances, he said.
"There's no reason why many of these smaller venues shouldn't thrive as well," Law said. "It creates a more vibrant music scene. Artists can work their way up. You're talking about a stepping stone. We are very much like baseball, where you have a farm system, where they work their way up."
But local arts groups and venue operators say they worry that those smaller venues will have a tough time staying in business.
The city of Portland owns Merrill Auditorium. Performances at the auditorium netted the city more than $570,000 last year, which benefits Portland taxpayers, the arts groups point out.
Last year, Live Nation presented 15 events at the auditorium. Petrin said it's easy to believe that Live Nation events once booked for Merrill would move across the street if the new venue is approved.
Other direct impacts are less clear, but Lauren Wayne, president of State Theatre Presents, said she doesn't believe the proposed music hall will add new capacity to Portland.
In its applications to the city, the developers say they expect a more typical average event at the music hall would represent about 70% of the venue's capacity, or roughly 2,300 people.
That's not far off from the respective capacities at Merrill or State, Wayne said.
"The only competition I'm afraid of is the competition that's afraid of competition and then puts other competition out of business," she said. "And I think that's what we're talking about."
Wayne said as Live Nation builds or acquires more venues across the country, it will be able to entice more artists to skip independent rooms or venues affiliated with other promotion groups and tour exclusively at Live Nation spaces. That practice is documented in the Justice Department's anti-trust lawsuit.
Parking & congestion concerns
There are also concerns about traffic and congestion downtown.
Petrin said it's already a struggle to find parking for sold-out Portland Ovations shows at Merrill. It's worse, she said, when there are multiple events at venues around the city on the same night.
"We literally have patrons who will email us or call us the day after a performance and say, we couldn't find parking, we turned around and went home," Petrin said. "That's now."
Under Portland's new land use code approved last year, there is no requirement for the music hall developers to have parking on site.
Live Nation said in response to concerns, it has an agreement with Mugar Enterprises to offer $20 event parking at two garages in Portland. The rate would be offered on nights when there are events at the Portland Music Hall and Merrill, State and the arena, according to the agreement.
"The capacity is there; we've studied the parking," said Todd Goldenfarb, managing director of Mile Marker Investments. "We are working with operators to not only improve the parking experience for Portland Music Hall but for all of the music venues in the neighborhood. I think we're doing something that's going to benefit the community as a whole."
Still, Portland's existing venue operators say they're concerned that added congestion will deter local residents from visiting smaller performing spaces. Many are less than half a mile away from the Portland Music Hall and feature local and independent artists.
"Live Nation doesn't care if 10 people don't come to their show," said Scott Mohler, the executive director of the Maine Music Alliance, which represents local performers and music professionals. "But if ten people don't go to the Apohadion on some night, then that's a bigger hit for them."
'They come because it's different'
Those community spaces are the lifeblood of Portland, said Lauren Wayne of the State Theatre. And she believes if a multi-billion-dollar corporation is allowed to move in, Portland could lose the authenticity that attracted her to move to the city 25 years ago.
"It was so local and fiercely independent," Wayne said. "I've never, ever lived anywhere like it. And it's changed drastically since then, and that's fine. Growth is good. Smart growth is good. But why do tourists come to Portland? They don't come for Walmart. They come for the restaurants. They come for the music. They come because we're on the ocean. They come because it's different."
The developers argue that the proposed venue is exactly the kind of project that city planners envisioned for this lot. Half of the proposed project site is a surface parking lot; the other half of the site once housed the Portland Press Herald's printers.
"While we thrive, the Merrill will thrive. Restaurants will thrive. And Portland will continue to garner that worldwide reputation," Goldenfarb said.
But Mohler of the Maine Music Alliance disagrees.
"This is a how a city loses its character," he said. "It takes decades to built but months to destroy."
Ultimately, Portland's planning board will decide whether to approve the project.
On Monday, the Portland City Council is expected to vote on a temporary moratorium, which could pause the venue's development for six months while city officials study the impacts of large performing arts spaces on parking, congestion and city infrastructure.
