Lost Sound: A Look into Miami’s Venues
By Hannah Silva-Dajes, Andrew Acevedo, Che Tulloch
Miami is home to many creative minds. With spaces such as Wynwood that reflect this passion, it is no secret how many artistic communities it houses in South Florida. One of the groups that make up this population is musicians, with a multitude of local bands that share their sound and connect with each other for many years.
One of the earliest local venues recorded would be Tobacco Road which was established in 1912. Starting out as a speakeasy during the prohibition era, it had gradually evolved into a space for many jazz and blues artists. Following the later years, it had fully turned into the spot to find live music in Miami around the Brickell neighborhood.
Venues in South Florida have been a home to many of these artists, making it possible for the community to interact and these artists to gain more recognition for their craft. However there has been a gradual scarcity in these places. One being the previously mentioned Tobacco Road, which have decided to shut down due to development plans in 2014.
Even more recent venues who have opened in the later years had no choice but to close due to the pandemic as well. Las Rosas, one of the more modern of the few, opened its doors on 2017. By then, they have established themselves as a well known venue embracing different genres and becoming a platform for emerging local artists.
Las Rosas however was met with the same end as many other venues, having to close due to financial drawbacks after COVID-19 hit. Making 2022 its last year of being opened. With these gradual closures on local venues, Miami is left with fewer venues than before, a bit of history leaving each time one closes its doors.
Of the twelve live music venues in the city that have existed in the past decade, seven of them have closed, two within the past year due to the rising cost of rent in the downtown and Little Haiti areas where they are located combined with the aforementioned effects of Covid-19. And while new venues pop up all the time, many of them are primarily for the electronic music crowd, influenced by the success of Ultra Music Festival, and do not book musicians outside of those respective genres.
Not only does the closing and lack of medium and smaller sized venues in Miami affect local bands, but also many touring bands that attract crowds in the 500–1,500 range.
As of December 2023, there are no venues that can accommodate that size and the closest is Fort. Lauderdale’s Revolution Live with a capacity of 1,300. With how far south Miami is, combined with the nature of having to “U-turn” to go back to northern cities on a tour, it is a logistical nightmare to perform here.
Popular venue Churchill’s has been closed for quite some time as well. Established in 1979, it was initially a pub started up by Dave Daniels who was known as a British expatriate.
One of the prominent features of this establishment was becoming a welcoming ground for many local artists in the punk and alternative scene, as the environment and efforts to prioritize showcasing non-mainstream acts allowed itself to be well known as the center for this scene in the 1980s. Churchill's has been responsible for hosting this underground scene in Miami for many years.
Even so, the venue has still faced their fair share of problems as changes in owners and word of financial issues has lead to the conclusion of its closure. While some still hold out hope, their last update was posted in 2021 and as of now, they have still not reopened.
It is clear that this venue is important to the owners as well as the patrons, if they are still trying to reopen after many years. Hopefully this recent trend of beloved music venues closing ends soon.
Music venues are important for Miami culture. They act as places of celebration, recreation, and opportunity for local artists to gain exposure. The closing of a venue is always a sad thing because it is as if a piece of history got taken away from the very land it was on. Many people have made memories at these places and for them to be permanently gone is heartbreaking to say the least.
