Ryan Cormier

The News Journal

The world's largest live entertainment company is moving into Delaware's largest city.

Live Nation Entertainment will take over management of Market Street's historic Queen Theatre, replacing World Cafe Live, officials have exclusively revealed to The News Journal.

The arrival of the live music juggernaut at the end of the month could mean The Queen Theatre will draw bigger acts while targeting a younger demographic and radiating a big-city vibe.

"To us, we feel like the Queen is going to be somewhere between the Theatre of Living Arts and The Fillmore," says Michael Grozier, Live Nation's executive vice president of clubs and theatres. "The Queen is a great building and a great project, and we just hope to build on it. We're going to try to bring the best shows we can down to Wilmington."

Live Nation has a massive footprint in the Philadelphia music market, managing and booking venues ranging from the Theatre of Living Arts and The Fillmore to the Tower Theatre in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, and the BB&T Pavilion in Camden, New Jersey.

Live Nation signed a 10-year lease for the Queen with building owners the Buccini/Pollin Group, says Chris Buccini, co-president of the real estate company.

While the Live Nation-run Queen will host only a few concerts over the summer as part of a soft opening, a full schedule will be on the books in time for a grand opening after Labor Day.

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The Queen's history-filled style and look will remain intact, but some renovations are expected as Live Nation invests in the building. One possible change is transforming World Cafe Live's merchandise area at North Market Street and East Fifth Street into a bar, adding energy to a corner with heavy traffic.

So far, only three bookings have been announced for the new Queen: a Radio 104.5-FM-sponsored show by pop punk act New Found Glory on July 12, Ween singer Gene Ween singing the songs of Billy Joel on Aug. 9 and power pop singer/songwriter Matthew Sweet on Sept. 21.

Tickets for those shows – and all future Live Nation concerts – are available via ticketmaster.com. (In 2010, Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation to become Live Nation Entertainment.)

"The fact that a global brand like Live Nation wants to invest long-term in the city of Wilmington says a lot about how far the city has come," Buccini says. "When you really take a step back, you think, 'Holy s—, we have a Live Nation music venue in downtown Wilmington. That's big city stuff.' We're pumped."

Live Nation will take over the entire building except for the upstairs stage and restaurant. An undetermined food-based operator will partner with Live Nation as part of a hybrid management structure to run that area, Buccini adds.

The Queen will be part of Live Nation's House of Blues division, but will not use the brand in the venue's proper name, which is simply The Queen Theatre. House of Blues was founded in 1992 by Hard Rock Cafe founder Isaac Tigrett, actor Dan Aykroyd and Judy Belushi, wife of the late comedian John Belushi. House of Blues was purchased by Live Nation in 2006.

Live Nation, which has access to a great number of acts in both the music and comedy worlds, should make a major splash in Delaware's largest city on the heels of World Cafe Live's failure. Expect more of a harder edge with rock, pop, country, electronic and hip-hop shows replacing some of the softer, more coffee house-influenced offerings of World Cafe Live.

In short, the venue could morph from a place that parents went to on date nights to the spot where they drop their teenagers off for a night of music featuring acts that lean more toward the kind found at the youth-driven Firefly Music Festival.

"I think you're going to find bigger shows and, more importantly, a wider audience," Buccini says. "Hopefully we'll be able to dip into the University of Delaware and Newark crowd. We want to broaden the appeal to get that many more people coming."

The theater struggled to consistently fill its 200-person upstairs area and 800-person downstairs stage during its six-year run as World Cafe Live, which leaned heavily on World Cafe Live's formula of singer-songwriters, Americana, tribute acts and local bands.

Its bookings fit well with its broadcast partner, adult album alternative station WXPN-FM 88.5-FM, which hosted a handful of its "Free at Noon" concerts at the Market Street venue. Even so, it wasn't enough to consistently fill seats in the hulking 45,000-square-foot building, which dates back to 1789 and underwent a $25 million renovation in 2009.



"Despite our best efforts to make the Queen a seven-day-a-week operation, we have not been able to generate the revenue required to sustain such an ambitious business model," World Cafe Live founder and president Hal Real wrote in a January statement, announcing World Cafe Live's evacuation.

At that time, World Cafe Live at the Queen had about 10 full-time employees, at least half of whom were expected to remain with World Cafe Live, according to Real. Part-time employees ranged between 70 in the summer and 100 in December.

Under Live Nation management, the venue will continue to be available for rental for weddings and other events.

A World Cafe Live farewell show featuring local acts such as Montana Wildaxe and the Sin City Band, along with a special performance by Wilmington's own David Bromberg, is scheduled for World Cafe Live's final night at the Queen on May 25. The show is free with no tickets needed, kicking off at 6 p.m. Real says he will attend the send-off.

For Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki, Live Nation's commitment to the Queen says a lot about the future of live entertainment venues in the city.

"It means a lot for the credibility of the city. It ups our game significantly," he says. "We're right next to Philadelphia, and we'll always be in the shadow of a major city, but I think we're going to cut our own path and have our own personality as an entertainment destination."

Both Grozier and Buccini say the Queen will remain a home for both national and local acts. And the Light Up the Queen Foundation, the venue's philanthropic nonprofit arm, will continue to operate. The group will receive more time to use the facility and will also receive a portion of each ticket sold, they said. The annual Shine a Light fundraising concert at The Queen will return.

"We are hoping to build off of what World Cafe Live did as a sort of pioneer," Grozier says. "We want to continue to celebrate local music. I'm hoping that as we find bands that we like, that we can work them into the TLA and some of our other clubs around the country where we can grow young talent into touring bands.

"That's saying a lot and I recognize that, but it's in our best interest to help artists grow and find more bands that people want to come see."

Live Nation's control of a growing number of music rooms in Philadelphia, combined with their new foray into Wilmington, solidifies their position as the dominant concert company in the region. Just recently, Live Nation announced a $45 million project with developer Eric Blumenfeld to renovate Broad Street's historic 3,500-seat Metropolitan Opera House. Live Nation also operates the Punch Line Philly comedy club, which opened last year in Fishtown.

Stephen Bailey, managing director of programming at The Grand, the 1,200-person theater located three blocks away from The Queen, expects Live Nation to work hard to make it a success.

"The idea that a company like Live Nation would come into a space like that and do anything less than go full bore, damn the torpedoes, is unlikely," Bailey says.

In fact, Live Nation is not new to Wilmington.

The booking giant regularly brought shows to the old Kahuna Summer Stage at Kahunaville on the Riverfront until its demise in 2006. Acts on the outdoor stage included everyone from John Mayer, Thirty Seconds to Mars and Bob Dylan to the Pretenders, the Allman Brothers and former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth.

More recently, Live Nation has been bringing one-off concerts to World Cafe Live at the Queen and The Grand. They were behind comedian Jim Norton at The Grand in April, English alt-folk act Frank Turner & the Sleeping Souls at the Queen last Halloween, as well as the Modern Baseball rock show at the Queen in March.

Grozier says the availability of a venue such as the Queen triggered Live Nation's Wilmington return.

"The bones are extraordinary and the investment by [the Buccini/Pollin Group] and World Cafe Live – they built a really good club. And I think the market as a whole seems to be progressive and aggressive in terms of its own growth and development," Grozier adds. "Right building. Right time. Right city."

Bailey says The Grand, which also operates the 1,200-person Playhouse on Rodney Square and the 300-person baby grand, both in Wilmington, has a good relationship with Live Nation, adding that he believes the two can co-exist on Market Street.

"It gives me great confidence that if they are coming into town, they're not going to roll in and roll over The Grand. They're not going to come into a town the size of Wilmington and just start machine-gunning everything down," Bailey says. "My guess is that they'll do really well. They know what they're doing. They have access to things that none of us have access to."

Since The Queen's downstairs stage has a standing-room capacity of around 800, Bailey still believes The Grand's 1,200 seated theater could still host future Live Nation shows.

Not only does Grozier agree, he says Live Nation's arrival at The Queen could actually mean more Live Nation shows in area venues like The Grand.

"I can't tell you for a fact that we're going to book more, but if I look at history, I'd say we'll be booking more," he says. "We'll be more familiar with the area. And as a whole, Wilmington becomes more a part of the conversation as we're dealing with bands around the country."

Contact Ryan Cormier of The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier), Twitter (@ryancormier) and Instagram (@ryancormier).

IF YOU GO

What: World Cafe Live's farewell show at the Queen Theater

When: Thursday, May 25, 6 p.m.

Where: World Cafe Live at the Queen, 500 N. Market St., Wilmington

Scheduled acts: David Bromberg, Montana Wildaxe, Joe Trainor, Nik Everett, the Snap, the Sin City Band, Shytown, the Headies, Vinyl Shockley, Kategory 5, the Cameltones and Brian LaPann

Cost: Free (No tickets needed.)

Information: worldcafelive.com

UPCOMING LIVE NATION QUEEN THEATRE SHOWS

July 12: New Found Glory

Aug. 9: Ween singer Gene Ween sings the songs of Billy Joel

Sept. 21: Matthew Sweet

Tickets available via ticketmaster.com.