We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lynn Schwarz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lynn below.
Lynn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the toughest things about entrepreneurship is that there is almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
While I certainly don’t want to suggest that the struggle of COVID-19 was my own personal mountain to climb, instead of acknowledging that it was a worldwide crisis that universally shut down everything and forced the whole human population to stop short and take stock of everything, all at once, I thought I’d describe how it specifically challenged me as the booker of a live rock & roll music venue.
By way of exposition, I had taken over the position as head booker of my venue in 2017. While I had been working there for 25 years and was part owner for 20, the transition from bartender/manager to booking bands and working with legit music agents was challenging, in the best of ways. I took a business that had been floundering a bit with the challenges of changes to our industry and demographics of our city, and added my own inexperience to the mix, and realized that I had to learn the ropes by doing it, and I had to learn very quickly! It was a steep learning curve. The problem with putting down offers on shows that are months out is that you don’t get a chance to learn from your mistakes until months later, so correcting bad patterns takes a long time. However, I found myself, when I saw finals from 2019, after two years of high anxiety, finally feeling like I didn’t have wonder if I could do this job. By hustling and experimenting, I had found out that I was able to course-correct our business and make it profitable again. I could breathe much easier.
Fast forward to mere months later, March 13, 2020 when we found out from our mayor, after the band had already loaded in, that while we had a sellout show, the band Knuckle Puck would have to go home without playing, that we’d feed them meals and send them on their way and lock the doors. That we’d need to completely shutter the venue, for an indeterminate period of time. That we’d need to refund all the ticket purchasers from that show. And all the ticket purchasers for that entire week, to start with. And then for all our shows period.
And my thought at the time was “Oh my god! This can’t possibly happen! We are a business of nickels and dimes! We have tiny profit margins. We have staff that relies on us to pay the rent and don’t have a safety cushion! We can’t be closed for two weeks. What if this extends to 2 months?” The reality of our actual 17-month closure certainly would have given me a heart attack if I had known right away.
Instead, I did what everyone did—panicked hard for a week or two or three, and then got started in adjusting to the new normal. Working from home, of course. In the case of a live music venue, it meant that I never stopped booking bands, knowing that whenever we were given the all-clear to re-open, we’d need shows on the books for it to be worthwhile to open the doors and it takes time to build up a full calendar. So I booked shows for the entire 17 month closure. Some shows I re-booked 3 or more times. I started to feel a bit like Sisyphus with these shows moving down the line, but I refused to stop planning our future shows and to relax in the slightest bit.
Then there was taking care of the bills and the staff. The bills had to be handled in a variety of ways—applying for grants and loans, asking vendors and rentals and services to be terminated or postponed or bills lowered. Creative fundraising ideas (trading future show tickets and special COVID T-shirts in exchange for donations.)
That wasn’t enough for my stress, though. To relax my mind, I took up making mosaics and gardening at home, and found myself doing these big projects because the amount of stress to be overcome with projects was truly enormous!
I also co-founded an organization called the San Francisco Independent Venue Alliance. It became clear that the “little guys” of SF—the live music venues that are not sponsored by the Live Nations and Goldenvoices, whose venues would be just fine, would need to band together to both fundraise and build awareness for our unique plight, as public gathering places with sweaty shows that would literally be the last to reopen in a pandemic. We organized around 40 small SF venues that were just like us and formed this great organization which met regularly to check in with each other and work on our joint problems. . We did two remote livestream concert fundraisers and a marketing/fundraising outreach program that raised a decent amount of money to act as a safety net for our members. We made a big stink and created an emergency city fund in conjunction with SF leaders that distributed grants to venues in an incredibly swift (for government) manner. We worked in tandem with the national group NIVA (National Independent Venue Association.) There was one night where every venue in the country that was still shuttered bathed their exteriors in red lights to remind people that we were all still dark. It was a powerful image across the country.
My partners and I continued to provide stipends to our staff throughout the whole closure, help them with EDD and cashing out sick pay, and generally making sure everyone was OK and fed and housed during these dark times. My partner and I dressed up as Xmas elves on Xmas eve and brought he whole staff cookies and a cash bonus. Keeping tabs on our family was also great therapy for ourselves. Some venues lost their whole staff over COVID. We did not lose one employee—they all returned when we re-opened. They are and always will be our family.
We still decorated for Halloween, but you had to look in our darkened windows to see the mannequin bartender in a hazmat suit and gas mask serving cobwebbed skeletons as patrons at the bar in a grim tableau. We had Kepi Ghoulie, local musician celeb, play outside on the street on Halloween and stream his show as a fundraiser for shuttered venues. Overall, the amount of love we saw from our bands, customers, and colleagues during this time made it all OK. It still makes me very emotional to think about accepting so much help from so many friends.
Two years ago, we hosted the mayor in an outside press conference announcing a city and state sponsored live music series called SF Live that we had helped to create during our closure—where the city would provide the infrastructure and budget for music venues to curate free outdoor live music for the public and try to make our city a real “music city” as it should be, in the same way that Nashville, Austin, and New Orleans are! Mayor London Breed presented us with an award for 30 years in business at this press conference, not an easy feat for this business. That was a really nice moment in time where we felt recognized for our hard work.
Reopening was a joyous affair, needless to say. We continued to struggle for well over a year after reopening, with no-shows and hesitancy to go out and with COVID never really going away. We finally feel like in 2023 we’re nearly back to our pre-pandemic levels and perhaps a bit better than that! Ticket prices all went up, because I think people now understand that $20 is not a lot to ask to see 3 really amazing bands in one night. The future looks great, but as always, we are on to other existential fights that can be saved for the next interview!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I arrived in San Francisco, my adopted home and the only place I ever felt a sense of complete belonging, with a background in the arts and a fairly useless degree in theatre from Oberlin College and not a huge amount of ambition nor any real life goals besides having lots of fun. I had played classical music my whole life, but wasn’t good or disciplined enough for a professional career. I had a lot of weird jobs and then one day in the late ‘90s landed at Bottom of the Hill with the intent of flipping burgers for a month tops, but I fell in love there with the amazing world of this small independent rock and roll music venue that had already made its mark on the local and national scene in the ‘90s. My then bosses/now partners Kathleen Owen and Ramona Downey were so cool and were also extremely hard workers who knew how to have fun. That is exactly my thing.
I did that American dream thing. I applied myself and worked my butt off as a cook, then worked my way up the ladder there and into their hearts. I became bartender, then manager, then they did me the honor of making me a partner a few years in, largely as a tie breaker if I’m honest. I was aware that I would have to prove myself to them every single day, which I have done ever since. I eventually asked if I could replace Ramona as head booker when she retired from the day to day after 26 years, and I was allowed to do so despite my lack of experience. Having the opportunity to change positions here and continue to grow and never rest on my laurels, that has made my life so interesting and rewarding. The challenges of this business are so numerous and so varied. I am quite literally never bored. Some days, I crave a little boredom.
Bottom of the Hill is a small to medium sized all ages rock venue that is a big part of the SF and national music infrastructure. We host bands that are about to blow up, we host bands that have had their day and are maybe on their way down or want to do a nostalgic underplay, we host bands that are lifelong touring musicians that will never make it super big because they have a style that is a bit fringe (these bands are doing the hard and thankless work of keeping great live music alive) and we build up local bands and give them the opportunity to play on a stage with the top caliber bands in the indie rock world. We host genres as varied as Americana, punk rock, metal, indie rock, emo, garage rock, hip hop, and many other styles. Anything that would be played on a college radio station basically! Not a lot of pop, not a lot of EDM. We present the “other stuff.” Our venue is cozy and quirky in style, with a kitchen and full bar, a patio where you can see all the feral kitties we feed, a fireplace room, and the best sound system around!
Our venue has been winning awards and customer polls as one of the best live music venues, both locally and nationally, for many years running. We refuse to rest on our laurels or get lazy about maintaining quality. Our old school analog sound system is top notch, we insist that our staff are all professional and kind. We treat our bands very well. When you approach a business without an undue emphasis on profit, you make a place that people appreciate and a space they want to be in. When the people in charge are with the staff every day and don’t place themselves above anyone else. It makes a vibe that’s hard to beat. All the owners are present and onsite still, after 32 years of being in business.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
In the world of booking live music, I’ll define clients as the bands who play our stage and make us our money, I was blessed with inheriting most of our most valuable agency contacts from our prior booker, my partner who retired from booking 6 years ago. Instead of having to hustle to find a whole calendar of bands to book, I am presented with most of our opportunities and rarely have to chase down bands to fill the calendar. Since we try to book 6 days a week with 3 bands a night, that’s a hell of a lot of talent to secure. So fortunately, I have a steady stream of the major music agencies, from Wasserman to APA to WME to High Road to Ground Control and so many more, presenting me with the best of the touring bands coming through SF on any given tour. I am given the opportunity to give holds on a range of dates, then place my offer on the band, generally competing with several other local venues.
I did not have to prove myself to these agents to get these booking emails, but I did have to prove I know how to put down an offer and then follow through in every aspect of the booking process—from announcing shows to promoting shows to advancing shows to hosting successful shows to reporting show finals. If every aspect of this process is not top notch, you lose your contacts because there are too many other venues that you are competing with that will do things right. In some venues, these things are handled by different people. In our venue, it’s largely my job, so it’s a very labor-intense position. I had to adapt to working with agents, which can be difficult. When I first started, I did not push back a lot because I had to earn the trust of these agents and also figure out which were the most valuable contacts. Some agents and agencies will chisel a venue for money and points until it no longer makes sense to do business. Others understand that small independent venues are precious and must be protected as much as their bands, if not more so!
At times I wish I did have more time to curate shows lovingly from scratch. I’d be a more effective booker if I had the time to go after strong shows and bands instead of just accepting what’s presented by agencies. That’s probably the most frustrating thing for me. My workload is so enormous that it negatively affects my work/life balance and also isn’t ideal for the ideal loving curation of our show calendar.
How did you build your audience on social media?
So this is a funny one for a person firmly from Gen X with even older partners. I knew we needed to get the venue on social media, and it was already a bit late when we finally did. We had relied since opening on print media and radio and flyers and other traditional methods of advertising. The transition for us was a bit of a “not it”. We relied on young people coming up to us and saying “YOU NEED THIS. Please let us help you get it started.” In other words, we relied on the kindness of strangers to get us into the modern era—people who felt sorry for us sitting in the dark ages and offered to help us out. Now we have robust and bustling social media accounts, but all 3 owners are still a bit arms’ length, personally.
We keep our promo staff stocked with enthusiastic young people who were raised with socials and who know how to keep abreast of new methodology and trends. Since social media is always in flux, it can be a huge chore to figure out how to get more eyes on your shows.
They tell me that reels and videos are the best way right now to get word out about music shows in a social media feeds that are already so glutted with ads and events. We see the transition from FB / Meta to IG for young musicians, but IG hasn’t really had the time to gain popularity enough across the board, so it’s a good thing they are now linked!
The more time goes on, the more a booker is expected to know jargon and trends on social media, so it remains kind of a thorn in my side. In the end? Fake it till you make it!
Contact Info:
- Website: bottomofthehill.com
- Instagram: @bottomofthehillsf
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bottomofthehill
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bottom-of-the-hill-san-francisco