By Madeleine Voth
Some changes are coming to the Eastside with the anticipated building of a new Live Nation music venue, which is set to open in 2026 and whose building is valued at $17.3 million. With these new changes have come conflicting opinions throughout the Portland community about how the construction of this venue will impact the city, primarily the rich independent music scene that flourishes in Portland.
Live Nation Entertainment, the world’s largest live entertainment company, owns more than 150 venues nationwide and controls major divisions like Ticketmaster and Live Nation Concerts. Until now, Portland remained the only large US city without a Live Nation-owned venue. That’s about to change.
According to the building permit filed with the city on February 21, 2025, the venue will be located at SE Main St. and SE Water Ave., just north of the Hawthorne Bridge. Plans show a 62,000-square-foot, three-story building with a mezzanine, 1,280 fixed seats and a total capacity of 3,500 spectators. Additional features include food services, artist locker rooms, a loading dock, offices and an artist lounge.
While some might be excited about the possibility of the new venue, the general sentiment of Portlanders is shrouded in worry about Live Nation’s threat to the city’s independent music scene. According to PollStar’s 2022 venue data, 88 of the top 100 amphitheaters in the world are located in the US and of these, 56 of them are operated by Live Nation, meaning that Live Nation operates 64 percent of the top-grossing amphitheaters in the US. This dominance in venue ownership and ticketing has drawn scrutiny from artists, fans and lawmakers alike.
Currently, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are being sued by the US Department of Justice and 40 states, including Oregon, for anti-competitive and monopolistic practices. Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter stated, “The live music industry in America is broken because Live Nation-Ticketmaster has an illegal monopoly…Our antitrust lawsuit seeks to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s monopoly and restore competition for the benefit of fans and artists.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield praised a March 2025 New York ruling that denied Live Nation’s motion to dismiss the case. “Live Nation and Ticketmaster don’t want to be held accountable for the monopoly they have created. We are going to fight to make sure Oregonians aren’t faced with these inflated prices, and that artists have control over where they perform,” Rayfield said in a press release.
These positions are echoed among those within the live music scene as well. Garrett Baxter, a professional freelance musician in Portland, fears what introducing a large venue to a city that might not be ready for it could do to the local music scene. “I don’t see the Live Nation venue doing anything positive for the small scene. I don’t imagine that anything could wipe out the local music scene, but it could certainly devalue it. Or potentially, the flip side could be true, exposing the scale of large venues in a city that’s not ready for it.”
Baxter plays bass at a number of venues in Portland, a few of which include Portland Center Stage, The 1905, Mississippi Studios and Jack London Revue. About his time as an artist in Portland, Baxter remarks, “As I’ve spent more time in the scene, I’ve noticed that it’s imperative that there are independent and self run programs keeping the city going and providing institutions for it, which Portland has not always been the best at doing for itself.”
He continued, “I see something like a big, giant, super venue opening…it already seems so far outside of the realm of what I wish could immediately be happening. But also, it sounds like the Live Nation building is an attempt to be seen and recognized on a large scale, which I’m not sure if it is what’s best for Portland. We’re a completely different size scene with different needs and a different scale of industry.”
Local advocacy group MusicPortland, a nonprofit trade organization for music industry workers, has been a key opponent of the venue. Jamie Dunphy, a board member of MusicPortland and City Councilor, made the protection and growth of Portland’s music industry a centerpiece of his campaign.
According to Dunphy, in September 2024, MusicPortland filed an appeal against the land use permit, otherwise known as the approval of the use of land by the local government. In filing this appeal, MusicPortland, among other groups, argued that the conditional use permit that they were applying for should consider the long track record of abuse, manipulation and corporate bad behavior by Live Nation. About 100 people testified before City Council, yet the council still granted the permit to the company partnered with Live Nation for the building of the venue.
While the future of this development is unclear, one thing is: Portlanders are fighting to keep the city’s independent music scene safe from corporations that might threaten it. Moving forward, Baxter urges patrons to “follow the artists, not the venues. Go to local shows, follow the members of everyone in the band…when you go see a Portland artist, follow the members of everyone in the band and see what they’re up to. And don’t go to just one venue, go all around.” Following this, Dunphy urged community participation, “The community should continue to rally to try and prevent this enormous corporate entity from coming in and decimating community, the way they have in every other city.”
Digital rendering of what the proposed new venue would look like. Image courtesy of Oregon Public Broadcasting.
