In November, a new music venue will be coming to Knoxville, but only for a limited time. The Outpost will be a pop-up space that will showcase local artists starting this November until March 2019.
The 18 and up pop-up music venue, is a collaboration between Abridged Beer Company and Born & Raised Productions. The venue will be located in the former Modern Studio and Holler Performing Arts Center.
According to Kent Oglesby, owner of music blog Knoxville Music Warehouse, the venue was an “opportunity where the stars aligned perfectly.” After Holler Performing Arts closed and vacated the space, Abridged Beer Co. bought the room as extra space for their “sour aged beer” program. But the process will take almost eight months, leaving the rented venue vacant. So the Born & Raised Productions team saw an opportunity to create a venue in the window of vacancy and took it.
Because the building was previously used as a performance center, the team only needed to change the name on some forms and the deal was set.
Garrett Thomson, co-owner of Born & Raised Productions along with Oglesby, spearheaded the project of a limited-time only pop-up venue.
Born & Raised Productions produces various concerts and events throughout the year in a variety of venues. The company previously put together a free concert in Happy Holler called Sunset on Central and the team is also responsible for putting together all of the concerts at Pretentious Beer Company.
The production company started back in 2014 when Thomson, at the time was managing an artist, reached out to Oglesby looking for help in finding a venue for the artist to play.
“We decided to do a secret show,” Thomson said. “So we didn’t tell people where it was going to be; We just announced it, sold tickets and decided to just figure out the venue later. We ended up doing it in some random package storage in Powell.”
After the duo’s risky secret show turned out a success, they decided to host shows anywhere and everywhere people could think of like breweries, Ijams Nature Center and even in a salvage shop.
The pair had a lot of fun putting together shows, but it was a lot of work without a venue of their own.
“The ultimate goal (for Born & Raised) is for our own permanent venue,” Oglesby said. “That’s kind of been the goal from the beginning when we started our company. (The Outpost) is just a next step that we never thought we’d get.”
With the opportunity to work in Abridged Beer Co.’s vacant space, the duo have been sprinting to put the venue in order to open Nov. 1, with a free grand opening on Nov. 9 with music from Jubal and Ben Gaines from Three Star Revival.
“This idea came together the very first week of September and I had no idea if the city would even allow us to open so quickly,” Thomson said. “But luckily the city has been incredibly supportive.”
So far The Outpost has announced artists like Firekid, Hardcastle and John Paul White of the Civil Wars. The group plans to have at least 60 performances through the upcoming five months, with 20 already confirmed.
The pop-up will be a music first venue, focusing on providing music rather than food and drinks, although the team will have beers available.
“There are a lot of spaces in Knoxville where music happens to be there,” Thomson said. “And for the musicians who play at those places, it can be a very difficult performance. It’s like there’s football on the screen and half of these people are just there to drink, so it can feel like the music isn’t cared about.”
The space will host a wide variety of music, but the team hopes to gear things towards alternative artists. Thomson believes that the alternative scene is a underserved market in Knoxville with a lot of people who enjoy it, but there just aren’t many places for those bands to play.
“We probably won’t have any hardcore bands or any heavy metal bands or any super experimental stuff you’d find at Big Ears,” Oglesby said. “But we will have alt-rock, americana, hip-hop and we’ll throw some electronic shows in there.”
The venue will bring in new and local bands like Peak Physique, More More More and Josiah & The Greater Good. In addition to booking local groups, the venue will host local showcases twice a month, with the first one occurring Wednesday Nov. 7. The Outpost will also host a silent disco and special holiday geared shows.
Because the venue is temporary, Born & Raised Productions are trying to program it with the most awesome and special stuff that they can. So you’ll find bands that the team loves and have worked with before and new amazing groups that they haven’t brought to town before to make each show special.
“We are making all these great, lasting memories over the next five months, then it’ll be gone forever,” Oglesby said. “You don’t want to be the one person come March, when people say ‘Hey remember The Outpost?’ you have no idea what they are talking about. We want people to look back and think ‘Holy crap, I can’t believe they pulled all of that off in five months and it was amazing.’”
More information and show schedules can be found at bornandraisedknox.com or the team’s facebook page or twitter @born_raisedknox.
The Outpost will be located at 109 W. Anderson Ave. in Knoxville from November until March 2019.
