Whether you’re an avid reader of these pages, or just a Portlander with a discerning live music landscape radar, it’s been hard to avoid story after story of independent live music venue closures and fundamental business model changes to some of the city’s most esteemed entertainment sites.
Over the past 18 months, venerable establishments like Landmark Saloon, Lollipop Shoppe, and The Heights shuttered, while the Fixin’ To in St. John’s changed course, turning its live music venue into a barcade. Other venues, like Black Water Bar, moved locations in response to nagging rent increases, and the opening of the Doug Fir at its new location in the old Le Bistro Montage building has seen a lengthy delay in its remodel and reopening efforts thanks to miles of bureaucratic red tape.
This trend of turbulence, to be certain, stems from a variety of circumstances—the still-lingering pandemic hangover, systemic economic woes and inflation that have pillaged the job market and audiences’ spending power, and unchecked lease agreements from predatory landlords. There are even reports of Gen Z’s avoidance of alcohol consumption affecting concert attendance. While the pendulum swing has also attempted to balance itself with several new small venue openings—all-ages shrine The Off Beat, the hip listening venue Mono Space, and the hardcore haven High Limit Room, to name a few—there remain troubling forecasts for Portland’s reputation as a live music bastion of these United States.
In October 2025, the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) released its first comprehensive national economic research study, gathering data from indie entertainment venues, promoters, festivals, and more for every state in the country. Oregon’s independent live entertainment industry, per the report, boasted $1.4 billion in total economic output, supporting over 10,000 jobs, with $130 million in off-site tourism spending. Yet somehow, only 37 percent of independent stages identified themselves as profitable in 2024. The disconnect from what seems an obvious economic boon in a relatively niche market begs the necessity for solutions to what is becoming a blight of darkening stages in Portland.
“The gears of positive change seem to take forever for small business owners,” says Jim Brunberg. “Unfortunately, one or two people—neighbors, persons with a little misplaced authority, plan examiners without open minds or vision—can make it really difficult for a business to operate. Portland can be, as one promoter put it, a ‘big bag of no’s’ sometimes.”
Brunberg, the Vice Chair of NIVA and co-owner of Mississippi Studios, Revolution Hall, and Polaris Hall, sees bright spots on the horizon for Portland’s indie venues, but cites the secondary ticketing market and the extremely thin margins these venues operate under as contributing factors in their challenges.
“I have a lot of empathy for those who have had to close their doors,” says Brunberg, “and I wish there were more help and resources out there for these businesses. “
Portland City Council President Jamie Dunphy ran his campaign to City Hall on policies that would emphasize, embolden, and support the city’s live entertainment community. Dunphy’s policy efforts have already yielded protections in zoning codes for noise-emitting businesses, though progress on other fronts has been slowed due to his recent ascendance to Council President.
“[Being Council President] has distracted from the work,” says Dunphy. “I simply will not be able to do nearly as much policy work as I had intended this year. I feel a great sense of pressure to deliver. We need to make some investments in this part of the economy, because this is the only path forward that we have out of our economic slump, in my opinion.”
Related: Read our “Can Portland Be a Music Capital Again?” interview with Dunphy.
Dunphy notes that traditional funding support models for the arts is relegated to nonprofit arts institutions like the Portland Opera and The Oregon Symphony. And while no one is questioning the cultural importance of those arts spaces, Portland has in many cases classified live performing music as a business, not as an art. Because of this, Dunphy says he’s trying to expand the pot of money put into the arts to prioritize live performing events, which could include reforms to Portland’s Arts Tax, recently revealed to have been sitting on nearly $9 million of unused funds.
“One could argue that a lot of these venues are like movie theaters where we’re liquor salesmen as well as music salesmen,” says Mike Quinn, co-owner of Portland promoter Monqui Presents, Doug Fir, and the AEG/Monqui venue currently under construction at the Lloyd Center.
“There’s a lot of competition for live music in the 300-500 capacity spaces. It’s kind of like natural selection, it seems like,” Quinn adds.
Quinn, who has been on the receiving end of many bureaucratic hurdles in his attempt to reopen Doug Fir, sees the trends, including declining alcohol sales, percolating through the live entertainment space in the years since his venue shuttered from its former location at the Jupiter Hotel in Southeast Portland.
“We’re not nervous, but respectful of all those conditions [affecting small venues in the city],” says Quinn addressing when his two venues do eventually open up. “It’s a lot different than it was when we opened Doug Fir 20 or so years ago. We’re gonna definitely be mindful of all that.”
Keith Testerman, owner of the all-ages bar and venue Black Water Bar, is succinct about the issues that lead to his business fleeing its former home on NE Broadway to its current locale on NE Sandy.
“This last move was a sort of all or nothing scenario for us,” says Testerman, citing unaffordable rent, skyrocketing operating costs, and a precipitous rise in insurance premiums as death knells for small music businesses.
“It’s not at all surprising that places are shutting down or just not opening altogether, because they can’t afford to deal with the City or just don’t know what they’re supposed to do,” Testerman says.
The issue with equitable city guidance through the gauntlet of permitting needs, zoning definitions, and insurance questions is a familiar refrain from Portland small live music businesses. Dunphy, for his part, has recognized this, and speaks to the potential for a partial resolution in the form of what he calls a “Night Mayor.”
“A more accurate term would be a nighttime economy manager,” says Dunphy. “The City doesn’t have anybody whose job it is to focus on the businesses that are open after 5 o’clock at night. If you’re a venue or bar owner and you’re having to deal with a complicated construction project or a water main break or a persistent public safety problem, you don’t have any tools other than calling 911.”
Dunphy says that in other cities, hiring a nighttime economy manager has demonstrated real results.
“It’s intimidating to try and understand how to get help from the government,” says Dunphy, “so this person would be their help. It would be their job to focus on making sure these businesses are successful.”
There are outliers to the aforementioned doom and gloom scenarios. In addition to the recent openings of the Off Beat, the Down Beat, and Mono Space, as well as the reemergence of live entertainment at SE Water Avenue stronghold Bunk Bar. High Limit Room—an all-ages venue for hardcore shows and raves, and eventually a bar and restaurant—has been fortunate to work with a landlord whose interest in the business’s success is intertwined with the owners’.
“We actually got a really good deal on our lease because no one else wanted to rent this place,” says Andrew Le, one of three co-owners of the Central Eastside venue. The requirements by the City before the venue can bloom into the full High Limit Room vision are still laborious, still very slowgoing. But the building’s landlord, along with the City’s assemblies inspector assigned to the project are, according to High Limit Room’s owners, pulling for them to succeed.
“All the stuff the City needs, our landlord is going to pay for,” says Le. “That was also something we had determined as a hardline up front before signing the lease. If you’re looking at other venues that are dealing with landlord stuff and they have to move out, it’s not easy to find another building that’s already built out for [live music]. No tenant is gonna have the capital to do that kind of work on buildings unless you’re Live Nation, which is why you see those bigger venues doing okay; they already have that capital.”
As Portland swings into spring, there’s optimism brewing beneath the din of toppled stages. Doug Fir could return inside six months. The Get Down and the Showdown, both post-Covid venue openings, have filled entertainment gaps left by others, and the slow and steady recovery of the industry after having to shut down for nearly two years is a sign for some optimism. The unveiling of Portland’s emergence as a true live music beacon could be just around the corner with the right coalition of voices, policy reforms, and lessons learned from those businesses we’ve had to say farewell to.
“Portland is the fourth largest music city in America and we’ve never embraced our identity as such,” says Dunphy. “We need to invest in what is here. I’m gonna try to get us there.”
“I’ll say one thing about the passion of people who run venues: that passion can’t be dimmed,” says Brunberg. “We may not be ready for what challenges lay ahead, but now we at least have mechanisms to band together. Politicians are listening. We have a tangible impact, both culturally and economically. I think the outlook is still pretty strong for Portland as an independent music city.”
“At least, I keep telling myself that.”