Owner Jonathan Kiersky confirms that his Midtown music venue, the Hi-Tone Café, will close its doors on February 28th after a 15-year run as the city’s most prolific mid-sized concert venue.
While Kiersky is abandoning the Hi-Tone venue as a full-time enterprise, he’s not abandoning the Memphis concert scene, saying that he will continue to book concerts in Memphis under the Hi-Tone Productions name as well as part of his recently created booking agency, Ping Pong. (Among Ping Pong’s clients are locals acts Toxie, Jack Oblivian, John Paul Keith and the One Four Fives, and the Memphis Dawls.)
“We’re transferring shows to different venues,” says Kiersky, who promises specific information on additional bookings in the coming days.
The decision to close the club, according to Kiersky, came from a variety of factors: A lease set to expire at the end of this year, a desire to book shows at different venues, and the conclusion that operating a concert venue of the Hi-Tone’s size in the volatile Memphis concert market was too difficult.
“I think maybe the location had run it’s course,” Kiersky says, citing parking and heating issues with the space in addition to the standard concert-scene economics. “I also got sick of doing shows I wasn’t interested in.”
“I think it’s extremely difficult to make it viable,” Kiersky says of running a full-time club of the Hi-Tone’s ilk in Memphis. “And I think that’s been proven with every club of that size in the past. The Antenna. Last Place on Earth. Six One Six. Barrister’s. Even Young Avenue Deli, which doesn’t book much music any more.”