Dani F.
Yelp
I fell in love with the concept of this place as we were in need of the perfect grass roots venue for our experiential art show. I love the energy of the owner Michelle, she is sweet and pretty easy going, however the integrity of how the place is run and how it accommodates its clients unfortunately put a huge damper on our experience in creating our show.
First in making appointments to see the space for all of our artists, either no one showed up to meet them at the scheduled time, were up to an hour late, or changed the appointment last minute.
Second, we were in an agreement to have the entire place (upstairs and downstairs) from June 1st at 12pm until June 3 at 12pm. But on May 30th we were informed that the entire downstairs was not accessible to us on June 1st which was a huge part of our event and needed quite alot of time to set up. No apologies or compromises were made even though this was in breech of contract.
Third the state of the place was pretty dire. In contract we were asked to return the walls to white with paint and fill in any holes, however when we set up this was not done for us. There were holes and pencil marks every where, as well at lots of drawings on the wall that were not addressed. The floors were filthy and were were told the place comes "as is".
Another part of the agreement made in February was that we would have no commission taken from the sale of our work, just the rental of the venue. But one week prior to the event we were told they would take 30% of sales. We fought this since it was not in our contract, and not in ANY correspondence leading up to that time.
There was also a putrid dead animal smell throughout the entire upstairs space. Also not addressed except with incense that did nothing. My husband had to get on a ladder and pull two dead rat carcasses out from the ceiling to rectify the stench.
We had to buy toilet paper and hand soap for the event and move the artists in residence things downstairs ourselves to prep the space which we though inappropriate and unfair. As we should not be touching anyone else's personal things.
Finally there was no garbage disposal options. We were not aloud to store garbage at the venue for the pick up on Monday because "they have rats" (clearly. we chased one baby out on to the street and gave a garbage memorial to the two we found). So we had to carry the garbage out our selves and find our own disposal options. Since only one of us had a car, that was very difficult for 8 industrial bags of trash.
Also you will have apply for a liquor license 14 days prior to your event, but on record this location has exceeded its limit for temporary liquor licenses for a 12 moth period, which we were not told. So be prepared to deal with that.
Granted the owner gave us the space for half the original price because we were artists and we were grateful for that, but i felt like we were treated as though were were done a favor and they had no obligation whatsoever to supply any sort of customer service with reliable integrity. Its a shame because this place has so much potential and does awesome things for the artists community.
