Gibbons’ Venue Back In Vogue

It’s no secret that since the 1970’s live music venues in Vancouver have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Richard’s on Richards, The Starfish Room, Retinal Circus, Smilin’ Buddha, The Cave, Oil Can Harry’s, The Sweatshop, and scores of others have, one after another, closed their doors, to be replaced by condominium developments, restaurants, and boutique nightclubs. However, after twenty years of changing ownership, marginal success, and close to three million dollars worth of renovations, The Vogue Theatre may be ready, in time for its seventieth birthday, to take its place as one of the city’s most eclectic live venues.“In January, we passed the halfway mark of what I call the Three Year Project,” says Matt Gibbons, the theatre’s newest owner, “to sort of see if we can keep it a theatre or not, and we are treading in the right direction.”

Gibbons purchased the venue from his father, Gibbons Hospitality Group head Joey Gibbons in 2009, and undertook extensive renovations, including replacing all of the plumbing and filling multiple holes in the 1940’s Art Deco ceiling. Since then, The Vogue has reopened its doors, offering a varied mix of standup comedy, inspirational speakers, dance teams, theatre, and live music. In 2010, it played host to Angels and Airwaves, Dan Mangan, Our Lady Peace, the Offspring, New Pornographers, Wolf Parade, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Joanna Newsom, The Hold Steady, Big Boi, and a number of others, while Motorhead and Godspeed You Black Emperor packed the theatre in February.

Though a theatre with capacity for 1,200 can’t replace those smaller 200-500 person venues, Gibbons’ Vogue is a welcome and much-needed addition to Vancouver’s list of live venues. The theatre maintains a casual atmosphere (drinks inside), has opened its doors to a varying assortment of bands, both independent and established, and feels intimate despite its size.

The Vogue debuted in April of 1941 as a modern picture house, offering the most modern theatre ideas: “technical excellence matched by beautiful appointments”, gushed The Province. And in the spring of 1942 won the “Perfect 36” award from annual theatre catalogue in U.S. Soon, however, pictures became films, films turned to movies, and the “picture house” became superfluous.

In June of 1987, with four years still left on their lease, Cineplex Odeon Theatres closed the Vogue. In the mid-seventies a campaign to save the Orpheum theatre - after its comparable closure - resulted in a massive renovation that designated it as one of the city’s main concert halls. Though several members of Vancouver’s performing arts community hoped also to Save the Vogue they lacked one collective aim. Campaigns ranged from chamber music hall, to multi-purpose media venue, to playhouse, while Randy Bachman - a potential buyer - imagined a live performing space for rock concerts as well as a production centre for musicians.

The building sold in 1989 to Vancouver resident Pauline Choy, but didn’t open its doors until March of 1993 with a Kids in the Hall stage show. In 1994 Granville Entertainment signed a twelve-year lease with plans to renovate the theatre to its original standard so that it might play host to long-running theatre productions and remain a multi-use venue. Blaine Cullings, head of Granville Entertainment - current owner of The Roxy, Doolins Pub, and The Cellar - kept the Vogue afloat for the next nine years, presenting plays such as The Vagina Monologues and The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron, as well as hosting rock concerts, film and music festivals.

During its period leased by Granville Entertainment, the Vogue remained active, but did not thrive. Cullings, quoted in a 2003 interview with the Vancouver Sun, admitted he’d lost money “every single year but one”. Meanwhile Vancouver’s live music clubs have been consistently disappearing since the late seventies and Cullings’s multi-use venue hadn’t filled that growing void.

In 2006 Joey Gibbons became the Vogue’s new owner, with plans to turn the Theatre into a supper-club. Two years later, the Vogue still sat dormant, until early 2009 when Matt Gibbons started to run some numbers on the possibility of the theatre becoming a viable live music venue after having a conversation with some musician friends back in Toronto.

And though the Vogue has begun to enjoy renewed success, as Gibbons notes, the theatre’s future is far from certain.

“It still doesn’t make any money,” he remarks.

In terms of numbers, Gibbons feels that they are halfway to where they want to be, though there is still work to be done.

“It’s a numbers game,” he says. “The amount of dates, times the amount of money you can make on a date.”

And, as far as the ultimate fate of the Vogue under Gibbons’ ownership, only time will tell.

“We haven’t decided fully if it will stay a theatre forever. The way it’s going right now, people are starting to embrace it, it is turning in the right direction, but the Vogue still needs to stand on its own two feet […] it needs to be profitable.”

“At the end of the day,” he notes, “it’s really up to people supporting it. We all benefit when The Vogue benefits.”

Read more by Emma Jensen