Rapid City Is Getting a New Stage
Rapid City has plenty of people willing to put on a show and finding the right space may get easier.
That is part of what makes The Gate Event Center interesting before it has even opened its doors. Inside the former Northgate Theater, owners Breawna Schwartz Ventura, Trinity Conrad and Anna Starenkova are creating a venue with room for roughly 600 people and enough flexibility to move between concerts, aerial dance, competitions, weddings, recitals, corporate events, community gatherings and whatever else local producers can dream up.
For Schwartz Ventura, who also owns Live It Up Studio, the idea comes from years spent on the other side of the equation. Her company has produced dance recitals, aerial performances and competitions, including the Black Hills Aerial Cup, while navigating the same venue questions faced by musicians, promoters, theater groups and independent event producers across the area: Where can we fit? Can we afford the room? Does it work for the kind of event we are actually trying to produce?
The Gate gives her a chance to build some of those answers into the space itself.
The plans include a much larger stage, professional lighting and sound support through Perfect Wave Production, room for aerial apparatus, flexible sections that can change with the event, a commercial kitchen and enough open floor space to accommodate productions that do not fit neatly into the usual theater, ballroom or bar setup. Live It Up’s aerial work will have a home there as well, giving performers the vertical space needed for a form of dance built as much around movement above the floor as across it. The Gate may already be growing beyond the needs of the businesses that created it.
Schwartz Ventura said the original plan was to begin the project, continue some of Live It Up’s programming there and see how much interest developed around outside events. They did not have to wait long.
“It feels like the events is going to be taking over because we’ve had just so many calls about it,” she said. “We kind of knew that because we’ve been trying to find places for ourselves, and it’s really hard.”
The calls have come from different corners of the community. A bridal show has expressed interest. Concert and event producers have reached out. Caterers are asking about the commercial kitchen. There have been conversations about recurring rentals, performances, classes and other uses the owners had not necessarily mapped out when the project began.
“The more that we’re in the space, the more we’re like, okay, this events thing is probably going to be the thing,” Schwartz Ventura said.
That response may be the clearest indication of what The Gate could become.
Rapid City already has large arenas, traditional theaters, bars, galleries, studios and smaller performance rooms, but local producers often find themselves trying to make an event fit a space that was built for something else. A growing artist may be too big for a small room without being ready for an arena. A dance company needs a different kind of floor and backstage setup than a band. An aerial competition needs height. A wedding, vendor show or corporate gathering needs yet another configuration. The Gate is being designed around the idea that the room can change instead.
Schwartz Ventura repeatedly described a space that could hold a dance competition one weekend, a concert the next, a wedding after that, something nobody has proposed yet the week after and still hold a chuch service on Sunday. The early calls suggest people are already imagining their own dream events.
For a city full of artists, promoters, teachers, performers and organizers who have spent years asking where they can put the next idea, Rapid City is about to have one more answer.
