Music Farm no more.
Don’t panic: There will still be a 1,200-capacity rock club at 1022 Senate St. It just won’t be a Music Farm.
After a little more than three years partnering with the stalwart Charleston rock club and promotions company of the same name to bring acts to the large room attached to its location in Columbia’s Vista, Nashville-based chain Tin Roof is rebranding the space as The Senate and promising to increase bookings by 30 percent.
“We brought in Music Farm out of Charleston, a great group of guys, and did an initial three-year service and licensing agreement with them,” offers Bob Franklin, CEO for Tin Roof, which offers libations, live music and South- and Southwestern-inspired bar food at 13 locations around the Southeast along with outposts in Baltimore and San Diego. “That agreement came up and we decided to give Columbia its own brand and own venue, and those guys are concentrating more on their Charleston venue and some of their festival business. So that’s kind of how this reinvention is coming up.”
Both Franklin and Trae Judy, the partner in Music Farm Productions who oversaw the Columbia venue, emphasize that the split is amicable.
"I am thankful for the opportunity Tin Roof gave us to bring the Farm to Columbia,” reads the prepared statement from Judy. “Together, we brought a fresh breath of air to the music scene. I look forward to seeing the scene here thrive as downtown Columbia continues to grow."
National booking for the newly minted Senate at Tin Roof will come exclusively from AEG Presents, which headquarters its Carolinas operation in Columbia. AEG has brought some of the more impressive bookings that the room has seen so far — including Third Eye Blind, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, and a surprising kickoff to J. Cole’s largely arena-based world tour last year. It remains to be seen how AEG will do handling the bulk of the calendar, but if it can remain consistent to this previous standard, The Senate could begin to rival rock clubs in more renowned music towns such as Asheville and Atlanta.
But don’t look for bookings to increase right away. Franklin says it will take until the fall for the venue to begin building the more robust calendar he wants to see moving forward.
The Nashville-basd Madison Entertainment will provide in-house booking support, programming local and regional acts around the bookings provided by AEG, and will manage the overall calendar. The company has a solid track record programming rooms all over the country, and helping put on festivals such as KABOO Del Mar, a California event that includes acts such as Foo Fighters, Imagine Dragons, Katy Perry, and Robert Plant on its 2018 lineup.
Madison brings a wealth of contacts and experience to the table — important as The Senate is the only Tin Roof property to operate at such a large capacity — but it’ll be up to Nashville-based talent buyer Chris Drizen to keep a bead on the Columbia scene and book the right talent from around the Midlands and points close by to fill in the calendar.
“I do live in Nashville. And I buy for venues all over the country,” Drizen tells Free Times. “You can look at analytics as much as you can, and the only way you can really know is to get a feel for the room and come out and be there. I plan on traveling quite a bit, especially in the short term, as I start to feel comfortable in the room. You have to see how every show does.”
Echoing similar comments from Franklin, Drizen says he intends to expand and diversify the programming. In particular, he says he intends to bring more country and hip-hop to the venue, indicating Music Farm did well with those genres. Both he and Franklin say it will also be important to find ways to flex the space, making it comfortable for shows with 200, 500 and on up to 1,200 people. And as the room tries different tactics — more seated shows, and exclusive intimate engagements from legacy acts are two ideas Drizen mentions — it will be important for the talent buyer to get his boots on the ground and see how things go.
“One of my favorite shows that I booked a few years ago was Kris Kristofferson,” Drizen says. “I mean, why not have a legend like Kris Kristofferson, who’s now touring, play Music Farm? I think it would not only appeal to people who’ve known him for a long time, but also a younger audience whose country world has been inspired by his songs. I want to be able to do stuff like that.”
“If it’s a first time that we’re doing one of these legendary acts, I want to come out there and see how it does,” he adds. “I want to get a feel of the community. I want to drive around to the other venues. There is no way of being shy about it. You just have to kind of immerse yourself into the culture of the town. And I plan on continuing to do that.”
One big change The Senate will implement right away is its new Disco Load Out DJ nights. Held on Fridays and Saturdays starting June 1, they will take place at about 11 p.m. after concerts, or 10 p.m. if there’s nothing else scheduled that night, with free admission to anyone who attended a show and a $5 cover for everyone else.
“Load-out will still be happening in the main part of the venue,” Franklin says of how the event will function after a concert. “We’ll actually draw a curtain across to block it off and black it out, and then we’ll have a DJ set up and whoever came to the show can stay, instead of being forced out and off on their own, they can stay and enjoy and your friends who didn’t go to the show are able to come up and meet up with you.”
For Franklin, these Disco Load Outs are part of realizing his vision for The Senate and Tin Roof to become Columbia’s go-to “music block.” Aiming to keep both rooms open as often as possible — and occasionally adding shows in the venues’ shared parking lot, as they have of late with the free Vista After Five series — the idea is to create a hub of activity, with some of the people who show up for one event perhaps continuing their evening in one of the other spaces.
“My vision when we did this three or four years ago was to really get that to take off as that live music block,” Franklin explains. “You don’t know what’s happening there, but it’s gonna be good, and it’s gonna be based around music. You just go to the block.”
Upcoming Shows at The Senate at Tin Roof
June 23 — Hot Chicken Fest with Will Hoge
Wednesdays in June — June Jam Party with 97.5 WCOS
Sept. 2 — Papadosio
Sept. 9 — Shooter Jennings
Sept. 14 — Rainbow Kitten Surprise
Sept. 16 — Descendents
Sept. 18 — Neck Deep
Sept. 21 — Old 97's
Sept. 22 — Jump, Little Children
Sept. 26 — Future Islands
Nov. 5 — Lauv with Charlotte Lawrence
