Hermann’s Upstairs to close, Victoria’s music scene shrinks further

The second and third floors of Hermann’s, a growing hub for Victoria’s dance music scene, is closing on March 31. Hermann’s Jazz Club on the ground floor will continue to operate as the longest-continuously running jazz club in Canada.

Hermann’s Upstairs has long been a venue for live music, with less of a jazz focus than its downstairs club. It was previously home to Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club and before that, operated as a nightclub for 13 years under the names DéjàVous and Touch Lounge.

Since 2021, Hermann’s Upstairs has hosted shows geared toward dance music, bringing in international and local DJs to the two-room venue. It had gained a reputation for its variety of events, often hosting shows for underground electronic music.

According to a statement from Arts on View, the non-profit which operates Hermann’s Jazz Club and Upstairs, the decision to terminate the lease with the building’s owners—the Estate of Hermann Nieweler, who opened the Jazz Club in 1981—allows the non-profit to focus on the Jazz Club and neighbouring View Street Social. In the meantime, Arts on View said it plans to explore new programming ideas that could make the upstairs lounge more financially viable.

Money problems have plagued Hermann’s venues for some time now. Repairs after a fire destroyed much of the building in 2000 were paid for out of Nieweler’s pocket. After he passed away in 2015, his children struggled to keep the venues afloat. In 2019, when the venues seemed destined to close, Arts on View raised the money to take over management for all of Hermann’s.

Last September, Arts on View put a call out for donations, saying it needed $250K just to “keep the lights on.” It’s not public how much was raised.

Many mid-sized performance venues in Victoria have shut their doors in recent years due to financial issues, with Carlton Club closing last year and Logan’s Pub shutting down in 2021. Larger venues, like the Royal Theatre and Capital Ballroom, usually bring in big names, and with them, an inaccessible price point for most local event hosts.

A CRD report from 2020 showed that, of the 166 artists and producers surveyed in the region, nearly 70% said they were rarely able to access affordable spaces for rehearsing and performing.

The announcement of its closure caught one local event host off guard. Gabriel Bettey had booked Hermann’s Upstairs for an upcoming show that was to be hosted by his production company Dubversified Culture, with a headliner he expected to draw crowds. Now, without another venue to move to, he’s had to make the decision to cancel the show. Hermann’s was one of the few venues, according to Bettey, that offered an affordable space that could accommodate a crowd of more than 300 people.

“For me, I was like, this is the perfect spot,” said Bettey, explaining that the size and layout of the space made the price point even more appealing. “It has a decent capacity and two rooms, so we can put two different styles of music on the same night.”

There are still some available mid-sized venues, like Upstairs Cabaret and Victoria Event Centre, but Bettey said the number of appropriate venues in Victoria can’t meet the demand from event organizers.

“As we head into the summer especially, we’re all fighting to get the same spaces,” he said.

He said that as a part-time events organizer, he feels he can’t dedicate the time to fight for these spaces—and the available options continue to dwindle.

“We don’t get new venues,” said Bettey. “That doesn’t happen ever. We just lose venues.”

Bettey said he’d like to see more multi-purpose venues that operate as something else during the day, as a way of being financially viable.  He said the city hasn’t done enough to keep venues from shutting down.

“The city developed really fast and didn’t include arts and culture in its planning,” said Bettey. “Even though it’s trying to say [it did], I’m not really seeing it.”