Live Nation is officially preparing to open a 5,000-person venue (called “The Terminal”) in Houston, Texas.

The Beverly Hills-based concert promoter just recently detailed its plans for The Terminal, via a formal release that was emailed to Digital Music News. Slated to begin welcoming artists and fans in November of this year, the venue will look to replicate “the same intimate feel of a small club” despite boasting a multi-thousand-person capacity.

Expanding upon the latter point, The Terminal represents one component of the ambitious POST Houston development project, which aims to transform a roughly 555,000-square-foot former mail-sorting facility into “a hub for culture, food, shopping and recreation.”

According to local reports, the massive establishment, in addition to encompassing The Terminal, will ultimately boast restaurants, a rooftop garden, office and retail space, a hotel (though this component has been temporarily shelved due to the pandemic, per higher-ups), and even a wedding venue. POST Houston itself is expected to open this fall.

Back to the OMA-designed Terminal, however, Live Nation’s release indicates that when artists are performing on stage, “in their line of site, [sic] guests will literally appear to ‘wallpaper’ the room with virtually no visible blank spaces or gaps as all balcony aisles and walkways have been designed at angles so that the artist never sees the aisles—only people.”

The Ticketmaster parent company also specified that seated balconies, dubbed “Tribune Tiers” (a name that derived “from the term ‘tribune’ defined as ‘a person who upholds or defends the rights of the people’”), will be situated above the establishment’s general-admission space. Though these elevated seats aren’t on the ground floor, once again, the text emphasizes that they will afford fans “a concert-viewing experience like none other.”

Addressing the approaching arrival of The Terminal – which will release its concert schedule sometime in July of 2021 – in a statement, Venue Nation president Sherri Sosa said: “The Terminal will be a great addition to the live music scene in Houston giving artists and fans more options to connect at concerts.

“We look forward to the Terminal bringing hundreds of shows to the city once it opens its doors, not only delivering some great live music but also creating new jobs for the community,” she finished.

Ahead of crowd-based entertainment’s full-scale return, Live Nation – which briefly saw its shares crack $86 apiece this morning, before dipping back to $85 or so – installed livestream equipment at over 60 venues, launched the “Green Nation Touring Program,” and announced that it would replace bottled water with “Liquid Death” canned water.

More broadly, Live Nation’s undoubtedly substantial investment in The Terminal is the latest in a long line of encouraging news for fans (and especially artists), with regard to concerts’ much-anticipated comeback.

No shortage of 2022 tours (from The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, and others) have already sold out, and a number of venues are planning to open at full capacity (and without mask requirements) this summer. Plus, Travis Scott’s Astroworld (set to take place in Houston in November) sold out in less than one hour.

Lastly, artists including Ashley McBryde, Dead & Company, Korn, and Dierks Bentley are scheduled to resume touring in 2021.

Source: DigitalMusicNews