In late 2020, Valley music fans were disheartened to hear that Gateway City Arts, the multi-arts venue in Holyoke, was shutting it doors because of lost business during the first year of the pandemic.

But the outlook brightened in April 2021, when Gateway announced a partnership with DSP Shows, a concert promotion business in Ithaca, New York, in which DSP would lease Gateway’s large music hall and begin booking shows again by late summer 2021.

Since then, the performance space, which can accommodate 500 people, has been rechristened Race Street Live and has hosted dozens and dozens of acts, from blues and rock bands to rising country star Tyler Childers and indie-pop favorite Japanese Breakfast.

But after an up-and-down 2022, DSP has ended its lease of the music hall. John Sanders, a partner and talent buyer in the business, says DSP hopes to continue bringing shows to Race Street, but booking for the space will now be done, as it was in the past, by Gateway’s founders and co-directors, Lori Divine and Vitek Kruta.

“This is the first time we’ve operated a venue for ourselves,” said Sanders, a former booking agent for the Iron Horse Entertainment Group (IHEG). “We weren’t quite sure what to expect, but we really liked the space and liked working with Vitek and Lori, so we wanted to see what we could do.”

DSP books shows in a number of venues in eastern New York state, Massachusetts, and a few other locales, including Northampton’s Academy of Music and the Pines Theater at Look Park, and more recently at the Drake in Amherst.

The company first began booking shows at Gateway City Arts in 2017 and liked the venue right away, said Sanders, especially because of its varied offerings, including art exhibits, theater, and food and drink.

But in the past year, he says, it became evident that trying to fully revive a music hall that had been shuttered during 18 months of COVID-19 in 2020-2021 would not be an easy task.

“When we opened in September 2021, everyone was still masked and we were checking vaccine records,” Sanders noted. “Then (the COVID variant) Omicron came along in late 2021 and early 2022 and shut everything down again, and in summer we had competition from all the outdoor festivals.

“This past fall was better, but there were still too many shows where we were taking a loss and the audience wasn’t there,” he said. “Some people have been hesitant about coming back (to live music).”

“I don’t think we were unsuccessful,” Sanders added. “It just didn’t pan out quite the way we had hoped it would.”

But Sanders said he’s more optimistic for 2023 and hopes DSP can continue bringing artists to Race Street Live — this time as a promoter, rather than as a venue manager.

Meantime, the Drake, which has a capacity of about 240 with seating removed, “makes more sense for the shows we’re putting on right now,” he said.

For her part, Divine said she understands DSP’s decision — “We love working with them” — and she said she and Kruta are reevaluating how they’ll use the Race Street Live hall and Gateway City Arts in general.

“We’re back to trying different ways to make it work,” she said. “We’re talking to (DSP) about doing some new shows in the spring, we’re talking to some other promoters in the area, and we’re looking at some other possibilities for the space.”

For instance, Gateway is planning Sunday brunches beginning in February, with varied entertainment to follow in early afternoon, from classical music to kid-friendly events to poetry readings.

The art center’s restaurant, Judd’s, will now be open only when other events are taking place at Gateway, in part because not knowing how many customers might show up to eat when other events aren’t scheduled makes staffing decisions difficult.

“We need more predictability,” said Divine. “We’re trying to take the guesswork out of this.”

Gateway will continue offering music and other events in its smaller performance space, the Divine Theater, which has a capacity of 120 with seating removed. “I’m actually excited about the future,” said Divine.

Sanders notes that with IHEG’s Calvin Theatre — the area’s largest performance venue, with over 1,300 seats — mostly shuttered at present, Race Street Live remains the region’s biggest full-time music venue (Northampton’s Academy of Music seats 800 but is an all-purpose theater).

“Race Street is a great venue, and I for one really want to see it thrive,” he said.

Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.

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