We were lucky to catch up with Amy Kline & Stefan Flower recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Amy Kline & thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
We founded The Parking Pad in 2021 as a house concert series on the parking pad in our Dormont backyard. After 2 summers, 10 house concerts and ~1000 guests we expanded to presenting live music in larger venues, including the Hollywood Theater, a classic movie house in Dormont.
The original Parking Pad is an outdoor music venue in our backyard with local and regional bands playing once a month from April through September. We began in the summer of 2021 when bands were still unable to book gigs in bars and regular outdoor community spaces on account of uneven and unpredictable COVID regulations. After our second season at home ended, we were invited to meet with the management of the Hollywood Theatre and booked one “trial” event for December of 2022. On the night of the event, the venue realized much larger than normal revenues from concessions, venue rental, and commissions, and before we left for the evening, we were encouraged to choose four more dates for 2023. We have had similar experiences elsewhere: the Dormont VFW was so pleased with our first two events that they asked if we’d book there twice a month. We’ve settled on once a month from December through March, and may look at adding other shows there or at other clubs in the area. We have become a trusted partner of clubs, musicians, and technicians due to our professionalism and our marketing. We also pay a guarantee to bands, assuring that they will have a successful night without having to worry about playing for just the door cover.
Recently we have been approached by regional touring acts, and so in 2024, we will present touring acts alongside local bands at our home venue, and at the VFW. We will not have access to the Hollywood for almost a year due to renovations, so we are investigating other 300-400 seat venues in the South Pittsburgh area. We have concerns about continuing to grow under this new hindrance while we have monthly costs to continue to pay, and momentum we want to keep. We will spend the next few weeks searching for a new space nearby.
We are Dormont residents dedicated to showcasing live music in South Pittsburgh, and pulling from local talent to do so. We love what they do and it shows: we give our guests and absolutely amazing experience and with continuous support of the music community and work with festivals, agents and bands, they have become a trusted friend among Pittsburgh musicians.
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.
Amy has over 20 years working in event ticketing and marketing, and works full time for a marketing and data analytics software company. I act as operations manager of The Parking Pad. Stefan is a manufacturing engineer in the electronics industry with experience in producing fundraising concerts and is the production manager for The Parking Pad. We started The Parking Pad as a means to offer space to bands, but also to relieve our own sadness and stress of not having accessible live music during the COVID pandemic.
Amy is also the founder of Dormont CoronaChoir and Dormont Arts. She has years of experience in creating interesting projects out of hare-brained ideas and bad jokes. She has worked in non-profit arts, music, con, and festival ticketing and marketing. She has created viral marketing projects like Pittsburgh’s Smallest Jazz Club for Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild Jazz.
Stefan is currently taking audio and lighting engineering classes to increase production knowledge and professionalism at Parking Pad events. This extension of his engineering knowledge is crucial to the success and growth of The Parking Pad. He continues to invest in light and sound gear for the business, and is looking for alternative income streams to use the gear.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
The way we treat bands has grown our reputation. We pay bands a guarantee, a rarity in house concerts and small venues where they often work for the cash collected at the door. We feed them a meal and provide beverages. We also give them creative freedom to play whatever they like. Our house venue has become a sought after place to play in Pittsburgh becausem of this, and we are getting great talent, which helps our reputation with our audiences as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theparkingpad.com
- Instagram: parking.pad
- Facebook: parkingpad
- Other: parkingpad.eventbrite.com
Image Credits
All photos courtesy of The Parking Pad, personal collection.