The photo below could be any Friday or Saturday night at the Linsmore Tavern (1298 Danforth Ave) pre-Covid times. Many bands, musicians and customers have been asking when we will welcome back live shows. Unfortunately, we are still not ready to do so and to be completely honest with everyone, we do not know when we will be welcoming musicians back to our stage.
Like many other businesses right now, especially in the bar/restaurant/hospitality/live music industry, we are struggling. We were closed for almost 6 months with zero revenue. We recently opened up again with a new patio, but it is not bringing in much business.
Over the last 10 years we have transformed our bar into a live music venue. We built the business a certain way, which relied on hosting live shows. Unfortunately with Covid-19, the business model that we built does not work. Bringing in high quality bands, selling tickets and packing the place was part of our business model. We cannot do that during this pandemic. If we were to put on a show like we were accustomed to pre-Covid with 100+ people in close capacity of each other, there’s no doubt that the virus would spread and that would be completely irresponsible.
Many other venues and bars are hosting shows currently with limited capacity. We applaud those places and the musicians who are back working and entertaining again. As of right now we are still not ready to bring back live music. Our number 1 priority is the health of our employees and customers. With the recent uptick of cases from a second wave, we feel right now that the timing is not right for us to open our stage. We currently do not have a time-line on when we will start booking shows again. As soon as we decide it’s safe for us to bring back live music, we will let everyone know.
The Linsmore is still open in very limited capacity with all of the social distancing rules. We just wanted to update everyone, as there have been so many questions about when we will open our stage again. Let’s hope we can get this pandemic under control, so everyone can all go back to the fun times like in the photo below.
