NORTHEAST FLORIDA — For two months now, places like the St. Augustine Amphitheater, Jack Rabbits and the Florida Theatre have sat empty.
Lisa Thomas, marketing and PR director for Jack Rabbits and Jax Live!, said, “It’s been devastating.”
There have been no concerts, no bands performing live on stage, and no fans gathered together to listen, which means there’s no revenue coming in either.
Thomas said, “There really are no words to describe how hard it is.”
Florida Theatre president Numa Saisselin explained, "In that 60 days, we’ve lost 30 events. An average event makes between $50 and $60,000, so that’s almost $2 million of income. "
Concert venues locally and across the country are hurting.
Jack Rabbits in San Marco has turned to an online fundraiser to keep its doors open.
Thomas said, “It was very difficult for us to even do that, but we want to make sure that we are in Jacksonville another 22 years to bring all these acts through.”
And the response from the community is giving them that light they so desperately needed to make it through.
“It’s been overwhelming all the love and support we’ve gotten,” said Thomas.
Over 1,000 places across the country, including Jack Rabbits, the Florida Theatre, St. Augustine Amphitheater, and other local venues have joined a national movement to push for more relief from the government.
Theraters and venues want to shpw that this industry brings not only culture but also money to their communities.
Saisselin said, “The National Independent Venue Association was an effort to bring people like us together to have a bigger voice and to say we got to make sure that these venues in this industry survives to the other side of this.”
Concerts at the Florida Theatre alone account for 400 local jobs, which is why local venues just want to be able to weather this storm.
Saisselin explained, “We’ve made it this far and I think we’ll make it the rest of the way I don’t know how but we’re going to make it the rest of the way because we have to.”
While many artists and venues have started doing live shows on social media in the interim, everyone is itching to be able to hold live concerts again.
Thomas said, “There’s nothing like a live show. We miss it so much.”