Makeout Reef Concert Report

On Sunday March 4th a band from Brooklyn, New York by the name of Triathalon played the fourth show of their tour in Charleston, South Carolina. The band played at a house that had been transformed into a small concert hall for the evening. The name of the venue was “Makeout Reef” it is hidden in plain sight in the Elliotborough neighborhood on the cross streets of Bogard and Percy. Three bands played before the main act, Triathalon.
At first glance the concert seemed to be fairly disorganized, like more of a house party than a legitimate concert. The venue’s main entrance had a large table with entrance prices, future concert dates, and the programming for the evening artfully scribed onto a very large chalk board. The open air ticket
I had no idea what to expect from this venue, and I was only vaguely familiar with the preforming band. The moment that I heard the name of the venue I was skeptical, “Makeout Reef” I’m still don’t like the name. Yet I must give credit where it is due, this house venue was professionally run. On my way out I asked the employees at the entrance what the ticket sales looked like and the attendance was just over 100 people. The crowd was mainly made up of college kids with a decent volume of non-student adults filling in the rest of the crowd. There was just enough of a mix to call the crowd diverse. Everyone I spoke to there seemed to be part of a cult following of this small band from New York, siting their tour as the main reason for attendance. The show was marketed online by the band, noting that it was their only “house-show” on the entire tour. This gave the concert a sort of intimacy. The venue also had a small campaign on Facebook, but it seems that word of mouth from fans was a major source of attendance as well. This event fit in with the rest of their programming perfectly, as the venue almost exclusively features young and new alternative rock bands. The programming is not geared toward a diverse audience, the only ways to view their future programming was on a large board near the main entrance, word of mouth, or Facebook. This could easily be remedied by growing the venue’s brand.
The venue is a very frequented location among College of Charleston arts students as well as old musicians. Although the venue could very easily increase its customer by advertising more they do not have the infrastructure for growth. One major drawback was that the band had to stop playing by midnight due to a sound ordinance in the neighborhood. Another issue is space, this venue sold out at just over 100 attendees which is not many. The event certainly generated income, each guest paid to enter and there was also merchandise being sold. The venue missed out on some major sources of revenue, the first one that comes to mind is concessions. If the venue simply sold beer and popcorn I’m sure that they would quickly discover an untapped market. After a purchase they merely stamped your hand. The merch was also arranged very poorly, better orchestration of the selling of merch would result in much higher revenue for both the band and the venue. Filing for a 501 (c)(3) is something that they could consider since they are so small they will never have amazing sales. This could also serve as a source for revenue as it is great press. The income from this evening solely came from ticket and merch sales. I would assume that this small venue does not have a very large operating