Backstage Live being rebranded as Alamo City Music Hall

Swedish rapper Yung Lean, pictured at a summer festival in Ottawa, will play the first show at the rebranded Alamo City Music Hall.

Swedish rapper Yung Lean, pictured at a summer festival in Ottawa, will play the first show at the rebranded Alamo City Music Hall. Photo: Mark Horton, Getty Images Photo: Mark Horton, Getty Images Image 1 of / 39 Caption Close Backstage Live being rebranded as Alamo City Music Hall 1 / 39 Back to Gallery

Downtown music club Backstage Live, 1305 E. Houston, is being rebranded as Alamo City Music Hall and teaming up with promoter ScoreMore Shows, the venue announced on Tuesday.

The venue is adding a new sound system with a grand “opening” on Dec 8 with headliner Yung Lean. Both the Yung Lean show and a Dec. 12 show with Tyler the Creator are moving from the White Rabbit to Alamo City Music Hall.

Shows currently booked at Backstage Live will go on as scheduled.

“It’s a rebranding, but ownership stays the same,” owner Sylvia Fernandez said. “We’re rebranding to bring a lot of innovative things for promoters and bringing in new ideas from Score More.”

In addition to the improved sound, the venue is adding lighting, renovating green rooms and changing ticketing operations.

Score More, which is based in Austin, was in discussions to have a similar partnership at the White Rabbit earlier this year. But that changed in August when the White Rabbit went under contract to be sold to a group led by Chad Carey, which owns restaurants The Monterey, Hot Joy and Barbaro.

Twin Productions, which previously booked a majority of the White Rabbit’s shows, also will make the Alamo City Music Hall a home base, meaning the promoters that booked almost all of the White Rabbit shows in recent years will be at Alamo City Music Hall in 2015.

Alamo City Music Hall’s capacity is about 1,200. There also is an adjoining club being rebranded, the Alamo City Club, which was formerly the Tequila Rock Club and holds about 250.

“We wanted a new home, and the space at Backstage Live was a no-brainer for us,” Score More founder Sascha Guttfreund said. “We have lots of plans for San Antonio, and having a venue to call home 365 days is a big part of that.”

The venue is the only tenant of the Merchant’s Ice building, where Indiana firm Herman & Kittle began plans in 2013 to develop a $33 million apartment community. Stacy Kaplowitz, development director for Herman & Kittle, said earlier this month that the developers have submitted financing and are awaiting environmental clearance for the site. Kaplowitz said they are hoping to begin construction in “mid-to-late 2015.”

Guttfreund said the possibility of Alamo City Music Hall becoming condos wasn’t an issue for him.

“Our concern is establishing a great brand in the city,” he said. “This city could use a fresh brand with the consumer and the band in mind, and establishing that is more important to us than the building itself.”

Score More has had success in booking up-and-coming hip-hop artists, including J. Cole, Wiz Khalifa and Schoolboy Q. Kendrick Lamar played the White Rabbit in October of 2012 in a Score More show. The next time Lamar played San Antonio, he was opening for Kanye West at the AT&T Center in December 2013.

lchan@express-news.net

Twitter:@lornechan