What makes a venue? If one goes by New Orleans standards, not much but the word “venue” itself. It is not a rarity to see a band or performance at a location with no stage: no divide or separation between performers and audience. The line which distinguishes a “legitimate” venue or show is blurred, along with said space between performer and audience. This is not a novel concept; basement shows and audience participation have long been staples of all music scenes, all over the country. What is unique about these DIY venues and performances in New Orleans, though, is the music community’s ability to thrive in such in-your-face circumstances and the longevity and popularity some of these places have secured.
NOLADIY.org, a website listing events occurring in and around the city, also lists all venues registered with the website. This list does not include the House of Blues, or the New Orleans Arena. NOLADIY focuses mainly on smaller, independent bars and venues. Still, in the New Orleans area alone, there are 98 venues listed on the site. Of all these locations, nearly one third have no actual stage. Some of them have no listed address. Many of them are barely venues except for the occasional show. Yet, when that occasional show occurs, there is no mistaking: one is seeing a performance, and this has turned into a performance space.
There is no true “stage” on Esplanade upstairs at the Dragon’s Den, yet it is consistently packed with people who’ve come to see live music. This lack of stage can also be seen on St. Claude at the Saturn Bar, but its line-up of performances each month is more than steady. Not to mention the scores of bars, record stores, and backyards that clear away a space and set up shows in places not often used for venues. None of this makes these shows or these places any less valid, but it makes the community that much more special. People work hard to turn a space into a venue, and during those few hours of music the audience and crowd will respect and treat it as such. Seeing this in action is a reminder of just how much culture and community can influence a space, turning it into and using it for what is wanted or needed in the moment.
The most recent and pertinent example of this use of space for culture is “The Music Box”, a self-decribed “Shantytown Orchestra.” Tiny buildings were assembled on Piety Street which housed constructed instruments and the respective musicians who played them for an orchestra conducted by local musician, Quintron. Three shows were put on between October and December, with guest musicians including Mannie Fresh and Andrew W.K. Every show sold out, with hopeful spectators lining the street and pouring into the small, makeshift, musical town in what looked to have once been a backyard. Those tiny houses did not exist before the Music Box venture, and that house on Piety is not a venue. Yet, an audience filled the bleachers erected for the event, and there was no confusion as to whether or not what they saw and heard was a performance. The space itself ceased to matter, but what filled it made all the difference. The Music Box and its orchestra may be one of the finest illustrations of what makes a venue: not merely a space with a stage, but the time, work, culture, and community put into that space, wherever it may be.
Slideshow: New Orleans Music Box Shantytown Orchestra
Photo Credit: Briana Hobbs
Sources:
www.noladiy.org
Another uncertain cultural space is Six Flags Amusement Park. Originally opened as Jazzland in 2000, Six Flags bought the park’s lease in 2002. There were plans for Nickelodeon to buy the park after Katrina’s devastation, but that fell through last year. The city of New Orleans officially owns it now, but no one knows what to do with it, and no one really talks about it. Lying abandoned just as Katrina left it, vandals are the only ones who have left their mark; it is an eerie and sad testimony to how neglected New Orleans East is.
easonable and affordable rent based on income. It can either be project based or tenant based, allowing the applicant to live in a specific housing complex or one of their choosing, respectively. Applicants can apply in New Orleans through the 
unity outlets. Adaptive reuse is “the process of adapting old structures for new purposes” for sustainability. The MIT Greening East Campus defines the imperative of adaptive reuse as to “extend the life cycle of a structure is related to various sustainability goals: sprawl minimization, preservation of virgin materials, and energy conservation. Also, many Western cities are changing dramatically as industrial operations more often than not move to the South and the East leaving massive, sturdy buildings vacant.” Renewing historic, damaged space is not an unheard of concept in New Orleans, a city which heavily promotes the concepts of “renew” and “rebirth.” 
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n Mid-City. One of the “oldest continuously operating hospitals in the world until it was closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” Charity’s mission “to provide top-notch affordable health care to the citizens of New Orleans” could not be more needed (savecharityhospital.com). Having only flooded in the basement section during Hurricane Katrina, the building was cleaned and ready to work weeks after August 29, 2005. It was not allowed to reopen, however, supposedly as means for a new LSU hospital and volunteers were barred by hospital police from entering the building. The building sits empty now. “The abandonment of the old Charity Hospital stands as a potent symbol of the many disappointments and betrayals experienced by the residents of New Orleans after Katrina” (Brandes Gratz).
On November 19th, 2011 Bayou Road hosted hundreds of visitors for the third annual Brewhaha Festival. This celebration of the brewing history of the area turned this typically deserted and forgotten commercial block into a thriving cultural center, as was intended. Tents and stalls peddling coffee, beer, and various crafts lined the block from the intersection of Broad Street and Bayou Road to the intersection of Columbus Street and Bayou Road. This display stood to represent the past, present, and hopefully the future of this neighborhood in a myriad of ways. As the oldest street in New Orleans, Bayou Road has seen more history and more transitions than most locations, but much like the neighborhood today, its story remains largely forgotten.
Bayou Road remains a place of solace for the African American heritage that helps to give this city its unique flavor. Today that flavor can be found in the form of pre-Katrina local businesses and a vintage record store which opened in 2007 Domino Sound Record Shack. Most notable are four female owned businesses on the 2500 block: Jordan’s Learning Academy (childcare service), Coco Hut (Jamaican Restaurant), Beauty on the Bayou (hair salon), and the Community Book Center. The owners of these establishments are known as the “Belles of the Bayou” and have been instrumental in efforts to revitalize the area. After Katrina these women received funding from the Idea Village to help them to return and recover and continue their attempts to revitalize the area. Unfortunately, they still have a long way to go. (
Renovations around New Orleans have long been underway after the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, but many New Orleanians are left wondering why the Saenger Theatre hasn’t reopened yet. After all, the Saenger has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977, and it deserves to be renovated if only for history’s sake. But it also holds a tender place in citizens’ hearts because for many locals, the Saenger is where they saw their first Broadway show, or it’s where they went with their family for a night of entertainment. Yet despite all of this, the Saenger Theatre has encountered many setbacks since it was damaged by water in 2005.
