Collingwood – This March, the Beachland Ballroom turns 25 years old and celebrates the accomplishments that have come with a quarter-century of community engagement in the arts.
With thousands of artists performing since 2000, owners and operators Cindy Barber and Mark Leddy have too many memories to count when it comes to their venue. However, they recognize the blood, sweat and tears that have allowed their space to survive into the 2020s.
“About two-thirds of businesses like ours go under,” Leddy mentioned, as “you never quite know who will succeed and who won’t.” Starting as a local music journalist and a talent agent respectively, Barber and Leddy admitted they had not previously owned any business like this and for them, the survival of their business was due to the long hours both owners committed to it. As Barber notes, “There was not a time one of us was not here for at least four or five years.”
With significant effort, there was also significant success, as the ballroom was and still is host to many modern rock stars. Most famously, the first ever show of The Black Keys occurred there in 2002, after founders Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney scrambled to find a venue to record their first ever live album after sending raw garage band tapes to producers. Thinking quickly, they contacted Barber and Leddy, who helped them create their “Live at Beachland Tavern March 31, 2002” album, which was the first of their albums to chart internationally in 2002.
Through both good and bad times, the pair of entrepreneurs was able to grow their business and the Cleveland music scene. With a “family” style, which looks to build connections with both the audience and artists, something lacking in more corporate establishments, they have made not just a music venue but a staple in the city.
Leddy described that, from the beginning, the physical building was split between the tavern, the larger performance space and the vinyl store. These three spaces were expanded with the purchase of a lot and office building right across the street from the ballroom in 2012. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, an indoor-outdoor patio was added for brunches, held with DJs every Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Over the years, this was also accompanied by a growth from a handful of staff to over 40 people currently working at the venue.
Barber explained that besides their investments into Beachland Ballroom as a business, there have been more qualitative developments meant to bring Cleveland’s music scene together. Barber, founder of the Cleveland Rocks: Past, Present and Future foundation, highlighted the importance of both her and Leddy’s work in uniting private businesses based in the music industry with artists to fight for art and business best practices. Together, they fought against ticket taxes, which threatened to make Cleveland the least-friendly city to the music industry in 2016. They also have secured state grants including a recent $50,000 meant to create a recording studio outside of Beachland Ballroom.
Together, Barber and Leddy are excited for the years to come and continue to look brightly on the future of music in Cleveland. Barber and Leddy agreed that “Cleveland is unique, since unlike any other city [in our region] we have a community of artists and owners that really have built a network of something special.” With the popularity and longevity of the Beachland Ballroom, it is hard to disagree, as both fans and the founders celebrate this special anniversary, along with optimism for the future anniversaries to come.
