Hey there, music lovers! Welcome to Why Music Matters!
Well, it’s 2026, and live music venues are struggling.
The rising costs of everything have led independent music venues to face challenges relating to operational costs.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster continue to operate a monopoly, and the result has been an absurd over-inflation of arena and concert hall ticket prices. We’ve come to accept premium & “dynamic pricing” schemes that charge between $500 and $900 per ticket for pit and floor seats at face value, and anywhere from $1500 to $5000 per ticket on the resale market, for major artists.
This is bad news for independent venues, as folks who were previously consistent patrons are staying away, their entertainment budgets for the entire year being used up by attendance of a single Live Nation/Ticketmaster-controlled arena show, in some cases.
If you’re a live music lover, a venue owner, or a musician, you be forgiven for thinking that the war is over, and the bad guys won.
Good news is rare in this scenario, but I’ve got some to share on today’s episode. We’re focusing on Mohawk Place, a legendary Buffalo live music venue that, over several decades, provided a home and a hub for regional bands, a welcoming abode for long-serving cult artists, and a reliable stop for touring bands on their way up.
Mohawk Place is, in a sense, emblematic of the city it lives in – like Buffalo itself, the club has been down, but it’s never fully tapped out. It’s gone dark, but it still stands.
And now, it’s in the early days of a renaissance.
Thanks in large part to today’s guests, veterans of the Buffalo music scene Sam Marabella, Ed Croft and Dan Reino, Mohawk Place has been granted a new lease on life.
Join us as we talk Mohawk Place’s revival, and maybe learn something about how independent live music scenes in cities like Buffalo can survive, and even flourish, despite the odds…
Welcome to Why Music Matters, Sam, Ed and Dan…
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Produced by 678Main Studio and Creative Services
Presented By 42 North Brewing
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