By K.D. Norris
Three West Michigan “small stage” music venues — Listening Room and Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids and Seven Steps Up in Spring Lake — are moving ahead with scheduling a few nights of music in the coming weeks.
Listening Room is hosting concerts outside the “Room” on the Listening Lawn with its first inside stage concert currently set for Aug. 6 with Tobin Sprout, while Pyramid Scheme’s first live show will be Charles The Osprey + Cavalcade + Crooked Heart on July 10, and Seven Steps Up has scheduled Leigh Nash (of Sixpence None the Richer) for a July 22.
But as the venues begin to come back to life — and live shows return to their stages — after the pandemic shutdown, both had hoped to already have received promised federal financial support from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA).
That support has not shown up despite their being qualified and early applicants, WKTV has learned from both venues, and that delay has drawn the ire of local U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga. Last week, Rep. Huizenga, who represents both Wyoming and Kentwood, joined more than 200 bipartisan members of the House of Representatives in sending a letter to SBA administrator Isabel Guzman “urging immediate action to stabilize and improve the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant” program.
According to a statement from Rep. Huizenga’s office, the rollout of the SVOG program has been plagued by technical challenges and persistent delays. Since launching the program in April, the SBA has approved roughly 400 grants as of June 14 — despite receiving more than 14,000 applications. In the letter signed by Rep. Huizenga the SBA was urged to “expedite the release of relief funding to struggling venues across the country.”
And that expediting of the relief funding will come none-too-soon for Seven Steps Up and the other venues.
“The portal opened officially on April 26 at noon and we submitted our application at 3:01p.m.,” Michelle Hanks, co-owner of Seven Steps Up, said to WKTV. “To date we have not had a response, although about a week ago it changed from Application Submitted to Pending Final Review. (On June 25, that status was upgraded to ‘Approved”) … But we have no timeline for funding.”
Quinn Mathews, general manager of Listening Room, also is still in the dark about its application — so the venue is moving forward while it waits.
Tami VandenBerg of Pyramid Scheme said they applied for the SVOG grant “in April. We have been in ‘under review’ status for several weeks now… . Hoping to hear of an approval soon.”
“Yes, we applied and we have yet to hear anything,” Mathews said to WKTV. “But we are producing concerts outside in our Studio Park Piazza all summer and we’ll be adding indoors as well here soon. We have a busy lineup for late summer and into the fall.”
The delay is of particular difficulty for Hanks and Seven Steps Up as it struggled to get back to business.
“We know we are eligible, and we are stuck without it. We can’t move forward,” she said. “We can’t, at this point, decide to quit because if we do we will owe tens of thousands of dollars for grants we have accepted under the condition that we certify we plan to reopen. We can’t hire employees. We can’t start up basic services or purchase basic supplies. Or fix our broken sign. Or deal with the hundreds of other decisions we have to make daily with absolutely no clue what to do.
“It’s a nightmare every day and the money is sitting there while venues go out of business. I don’t think it can be called emergency assistance now that it has been almost seven months since the legislation was passed.”
And for Rep. Huizenga, that delay is just unacceptable.
“It’s been six months since Congress created the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program to help some of the hardest hit small businesses in the nation,” Rep. Huizenga said in supplied material. “The Small Business Administration’s inability to properly administer the funding in a timely manner is completely unacceptable. The more time that passes due to bureaucratic inaction, the more small concert venues will close their doors for good.”
The letter which Rep. Huizenga signed points out “These small businesses not only provide good jobs and contribute economically to our local communities, they contribute to the spirit and local culture as well.”
For an up-to-date schedule at Seven Steps Up concerts, visit sevenstepsup.com.
For an up-to-date schedule of Listening Room concerts, both on the lawn and, soon, inside, visit listeningroomgr.com.
