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Grand Rapids music venue ranks 15th worldwide for club ticket sales

Posted at 5:59 AM, Apr 16, 2018
and last updated 2018-04-16 05:59:42-04

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- The Intersection in Grand Rapids sold more than 25,000 tickets in the first quarter of 2018, earning it the 15th spot for highest club ticket sales, according to Pollstar.com.

"The Pollstar ranking is worldwide, and they rank the top 50 venues, and we were number 15 and ... we are up against venues in Chicago, New York and London," said Joel Langlois, a partner at The Intersection. "We are pretty proud that we are at that level."

The Intersection, located on Grandville Avenue in Grand Rapids, opened its doors over 40 years ago to provide live music to West Michigan.

"We cater to every demographic, young and old and everything in between, and every musical taste," Langlois said. "This is a live music venue, and we are always looking for people's desire to see different artists."

Known for its venues such as The Stache and the Showroom, the Intersection recently opened two new venues: The Mint and Elevation.

"The Intersection always been known to book across all genres, and we will continue to do that down here for sure, whatever the kids are listening to," said Scott Hammontree, a partner at The Intersection. "I say, 'Kids,' because our average customer skews younger than, say, other venues. But that is our job, to pay attention to what everyone is listening to, and this certainly gives us space to put those acts in."

After toying around for years with the idea of adding two new stages, the owners decided to make their dream a reality.

"There is no venue in town that has an 800-person capacity, so our small room was 400 and our showroom was 1500, there was nowhere in town really to do a show that was more suited for that 800-cap room," said Hammontree. "So, what we were finding is that we were sold out a lot in our small room, our 400-cap room. I think we sold out, I don't know, thirty, forty times last year, where we realistically could have sold another 200 to 300 tickets. So we just noticed a void in the market for that size room. So Joel and I kind of kicked this concept around for the last couple years and decided to pull the trigger on it."

With a total of four venues, owners of the Intersection said they will be able to host even more shows, festival-style events, and it gives them more flexibility when it comes to booking artists.

"It really kind of gives us a ton of flexibility. So in some cases if we put a show on sale at The Stache and it blows through the tickets, and if this room opens we can move the show down here," Hammontree said.  "In some cases, if something isn't selling great in the Showroom, we can drop it down here as well, so it just opens ourselves up to a whole other world of touring artists that don't want to play the big room because they know they are only going to sell five or six hundred tickets, but don't want to play The Stache because they know they will blow through it, so just sets up a other set of options for them."

Elevation and The Mint are now open.