A live music venue in an industrial area of Burnside Gorge has cancelled all its shows following a visit by bylaw officers, but owners say they’re optimistic Quadratic Sound will resume operations once permit and fire-code issues are sorted out — a sentiment shared by city staff.
Owned and operated by four musicians, Quadratic Sound has provided recording and rehearsal space as well as a live music venue above the bottle recycling depot at 655 Queens Ave. since 2022.
Nichola Reddington, the city’s manager of arts, culture and events, said staff are identifying the appropriate permits as well as any fire-code or building issues that need fixing before shows can resume at the venue.
“It’s all actually looking quite positive in terms of the possibility of it opening again,” she said. “I’m optimistic.”
On Tuesday, the company announced on social media that it was cancelling and refunding tickets for all of its booked shows after visits from city bylaw officers and the fire department, who told Quadratic Sound that their events were violating zoning regulations.
Co-owner and chief operating officer Emily Mahbobi said company CEO Noel Anstey was told by bylaw officers that Quadratic Sound was operating its 75-person venue in the wrong type of zoning and could no longer continue hosting events. “It caught us by surprise for sure,” she said.
The few complaints about Quadratic Sound in the largely industrial neighbourhood are usually noise-related and quickly resolved by police, Mahbobi said. “They usually just stick their head upstairs and they see what’s going on, and normally it’s not an issue for them,” she said. “They leave and we continue.”
Quadratic Sound co-owner Shane Battley said the city “essentially told us that the building that we’re in wasn’t zoned for the events that we do.”
But Reddington told the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ on Friday that zoning requirements no longer appear to be an issue — and that the city had clarified the situation with the venue operators this week.
“That’s really good news,” she said. “Rezoning applications can be costly and timely, but it looks like that is not the issue. It’s more the fire code and the building permit — those are solvable with a lot less time and effort.”
Reddington said the city is committed to supporting its cultural community and called the closure of Quadratic Sound’s live music shows “concerning.”
“We really value these spaces. We want them to continue,” she said. “We want these spaces open, but we also want them to make sure that they’re open and safe for the public.”
An inter-departmental meeting with the city’s planning, bylaw and fire departments to lay out the “step-by-step” requirements for Quadratic Sound to reopen as a live venue is expected to occur next week, she said.
City staff will work with Quadratic Sound to help bring the venue up to city standards, she said.
In the meantime, Mahbobi said the company is going back to its core service of providing rehearsal and recording spaces for musicians.
The recording studio, rehearsal and jam spaces are still operating as usual and the company is taking a waitlist for new applicants.
Mahbobi said Quadratic Sound’s live-music operations began by accident, after cooped-up musicians flocked to the venue for jams following a prolonged period of COVID-19 restrictions in November of 2021.
“Next thing you know, we’ve got 80 people in a room,” she said. “We don’t know what the heck happened, but everybody was just so desperate for some human connection.”
Since then, Quadratic Sound has hosted close to 10,000 attendees at 305 events.
Mahbobi said the company is a labour of love for its four co-owners, none of whom have been paid for their work. “We don’t really advertise this, but once we reach a certain threshold, we’ll just take our share and then give the rest of it to the organizer,” she said. “We only need so much to pay our operating costs … we try to favour the organizer as much as possible in those splits.”
Mahbobi said none of the company’s 14 part-time employees have been laid off, but people have had working hours curtailed following event cancellations.
Some upcoming shows that were cancelled at Quadratic have been re-booked at other venues, but not every event found a new home, she said.
“There’s not a lot of venues in Victoria. It’s really hard. The ones that do exist are usually booked up,” she said.
Quadratic Sound operates on a club membership system, where an annual $5 fee provides access to all of its shows. Unlike most venues, it does not sell alcohol at its events.
“Not one cent of what we were paying out to artists or our staff came from alcohol sales. It was all through music,” Mahbobi said. “Money-making has never been our priority.”
Victoria Coun. Matt Dell said it’s become increasingly difficult for art spaces to pay rent in an expensive city, which pushes venues into warehouses or other buildings that may not have the necessary permitting to act as a venue.
Mahbobi remains optimistic that Quadratic Sound will continue its operations, saying it’s been through hard times before. During COVID restrictions, the company at one point pivoted to running STEM boot camps for children to stay afloat, she said.
“If people think that a little visit from bylaw is going to shut us down, they better think twice, because we’ve been through it and we’ve been back and this is not going to stop us,” she said.
