When construction for a new music venue at 89 Guest St. in Boston broke ground on April Fools’ Day 2019, there was no way to foresee how a typically straightforward sequence of events — break ground, build a thing, welcome concertgoers, profit — would be derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. But after a series of setbacks related to construction stoppages, supply chain nightmares and real estate logistics, Roadrunner is finally open to the public.
Boston’s newest addition to the live music scene is purporting to be a lot of things: the midsize music venue it believes the city needs, a neighborhood stimulant, a nonprofit arts partner. And the venue's management company, The Bowery Presents, is entering the spring like the rest of us, hopeful that the worst of the pandemic is in the past and curious to find out what that kind of future sounds like.
The 50,000-square foot, 3,500-person capacity venue is banking on success. Tonight, Billy Strings is playing the venue’s inaugural concert to a sold out house. Rocking Austin trio Khruangbin and New York pop-dream Mitski have also sold out shows.
Some might call it “the people’s venue,” as nearly every ticket is general admission and no "seat" will offer a better view than another. The venue was designed with minimal right angles and obstructions, and sight lines angled toward the stage, giving concertgoers a clear view of the main event whether they’re standing in the main square of the first floor or carousing in the thoughtfully sculpted mezzanine.
Josh Bhatti, vice president and Boston head of The Bowery Presents, said the reason for Roadrunner's existence is simple: it addresses a gap in the region's venue sizes.
“Boston has been underserved in venues at most capacity sizes, but certainly from the 2,000 to 2,500 capacity range,” he explained.
Shortly after The Bowery Presents opened the 525-person capacity Sinclair in Cambridge in 2012, management executives and booking agents met for a corporate retreat. As Bhatti recalls, someone from the venue side lobbed the question, “What can we do to help you?” And someone from the talent side returned the serve with an unambiguous supplication: “Build a 3,000-capacity room in Boston.”
A decade later, Roadrunner — a venue seven times larger than the aforementioned Sinclair — is opening beneath The TRACK at New Balance in a space originally designed as a practice facility for the Boston Celtics.
Roadrunner takes its name from the Modern Lovers hit of the same name (depending on your mode of transportation and orientation, you literally have to drive past a Stop & Shop to get there). But its declared commitment to local art goes beyond its branding and interior detail: 25 cents of each ticket from The Bowery Presents’ Boston venues goes to Shout Syndicate, a nonprofit organization that bestows grants to creative development and youth art projects in Boston.
Shout Syndicate Director Ami Bennitt said the money generated from ticket sales by The Bowery Presents or Live Nation (another partner) not only creates grants to fund projects, but also serves as a stipend for the youth.
“Some of them might have to work at a laundromat or a grocery store or a gas station as a part-time job to either get their spending money or contribute to the family,” said Bennitt. “We wanted to remove that barrier for kids participating in arts and pay them as if it were their job.”
She has worked with other live music venues in the past and said it's sad that some have closed because of the pandemic, but that those closures are not connected to this new venue opening.
Some Boston residents are not enthused by Roadrunner's arrival. In a post for Boston Hassle, a blog that focuses on underground and underserved musical communities in the area, contributor Meg McCarney argued that the venue’s “financial backing would have been better spent sustaining current venues, rather than adding another similar space to an already stacked roster of mid-size venues,” lest smaller venues struggle to make ends meet and eventually shut their doors.
Bhatti, though, is acutely aware of the role Roadrunner occupies in Boston’s live music ecosystem. The fundamental difference between smaller and larger venues, he observed, are the acts they bring in. He insists both are needed to support a live music culture in the city.
