Page 49 - ION Indie Magazine MayJune 2020 Issue

Stargazers Theatre & Event Centre, located in Colorado Springs, originally opened in 1969 as a
Cinerama movie house. John and Cindy Hooten purchased the facility eleven years ago and
converted it to a music venue. They host national, international, regional and local acts -- over
150+ music events each year in addition to film festivals and non-profit events. Stargazers’ last
music event was held one day before the governor first ordered that venues be closed.

As John Hooten tells it, “It was on relatively short notice that we were shut down. Our last concert
th
was on the 15th of March. The next one was going to be on March 17 , St Patty’s Day, with Ana
Popovic. We got the order…boom…and we had to shut it down. First, we had to do damage
control. With so many artists that we had booked, paid deposits on, sold a ton of tickets for, the
first priority, was to let our customers know that these shows were canceled. Red Hot Chili Pipers
were coming in May, a very expensive act from Scotland. They canceled and are not able to
come back until March 2021. Some of the shows that were canceled immediately that weren’t
rescheduled, we refunded. The refunds dramatically impacted us because that money is actually
used to keep the venue going, to pay expenses, to book other bands coming up, pay deposits
etc.”

Hooten continued, “Step one was to reschedule bands; communicate with ticket holders.
Refunds were appropriate and necessary…along with the hope that they hold on to tickets for
upcoming shows. That took the whole week.”

Hooten lamented, “Oh, my God…the world is crashing, our business is crashing, this industry is
crashing. We never had to do this before! How do we get through this? Getting through it, getting
stabilized. Okay now, what do we do?” “The next step is…wow, we can’t have people in our
venue. So, we thought…we can have a band and live stream. So, I arranged 10 weeks of bands.
Then we found out we were a non-essential business and it was not legal for us to conduct
business -- even with two technicians and people in a band. That did not fit the guidelines of what
businesses were allowed to be open. And part of live streaming is entertaining people and talking
about future events…and that is doing business. So, we checked it out and we couldn’t do that.
It's like, well, damn! Okay, so we can’t have live bands with customers; we can’t have a live band
streaming.”

In a bid to keep the Stagazers Theatre name out in the public’s eye, The Hootens are digging
into their archives and will stream past concerts from local acts: “So, now at least we will have
something, and we will treat it just like an event on our website. People are still wanting
entertainment. We can’t provide live entertainment, but we can provide live archive
entertainment.” The Hootens have ten years of audio and video of local acts that have performed
at Stargazers. They will stream two shows a week, on Friday and Saturday, and a link is provided
for viewers to send a tip. Any tips collected will be split between the artist and Stargazers, and a
portion will be given to a local charity. It is also an opportunity for Stargazers to push future
shows. For now, Stargazers will stick with streaming local bands.

Hooten summarizes, “Our philosophy has always been, to be able to call yourself a true
community venue music venue, you have to support live music and live bands. That’s part of our
mission, to do that, and we probably will have better luck keeping relevant. We are trying to
promote the local bands and stay relevant as a local venue.”