After we broke the news last night that local all-age institution the Artistery is closing its doors for good—leaving Portland with one less age-friendly option for concerts—we decided to reach out to longtime booker Aaron Shepherd about how this decision came to be, the difficulties of running an all-age space, and why the venue will not be seeking a new location. Shepherd's responses are excellent and definitely worth reading.
When did you first hear that the Artistery house is being sold to developers? Did you get a chance to appeal, or make an offer to buy the space?
We were fortunate enough to have a landlord who seemed to keep us in the loop. I'm sure there were plenty of things he didn't tell us, but we did know that losing the building after our first year on Division was a real possibility. Investors have been looking at the place for the past 5 years. I was never interested in buying the Division space. I wont pretend to know anything about real estate, but as far as I could see, the land was the only valuable part since the building is a complete nightmare. Buying the properties, demolishing the buildings and then building something new on top just isn't a project any of us were interested in or able to do.