Music

Toronto's east end is getting a new 2,700 capacity music venue

by Richard Howard

A long-standing gripe of Toronto music fans is the lack of a major music venue east of Broadview’s Danforth Music Hall. It’s been a long wait, but it may well have been worth it — CBC has confirmed that the city has approved a rezoning of Champions Greenwood off-site betting shop, located at Queen Street East and Kingston Road, allowing for its transformation into a mid-sized venue.

The development application, filed by industry-leading concert promoter Live Nation in May, proposed a 2,700 capacity venue (dwarfing Danforth Music Hall’s 1,500 and nearing the 3,230 capacity punching bag that is the Sound Academy), and expects to host 150 performances a year. Beaches-East York councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon was effusive in her praise of the move.

I am super excited about hosting a Massey Hall type music venue in the Beach! Finally some year round FUN in the east end! Good for our musicians. Good for our economy. Good for our residents.

If the new venue will indeed be a seated concert theater, it will provide a welcome alternative for acts that may find the Sony Centre too large and Massey Hall too expensive. If it turns out to be a standing room or mixed venue, it will also be valuable as the only mid-sized alternative to Sound Academy (and be similarly attractive to acts that won’t be able to fill the Academy’s 500 extra spaces).

Another way this venue will change the game? Jay out in Scarborough finally being able to say the words: “Pre-game at my house, guys.”

Here’s hoping the traditionally NIMBY-filled east end doesn’t stop this one in its tracks.