Wave owners getting national attention for co-founding an innovative new music venture
A local couple who own a busy music promotion business and a couple of local venues now have helped start another venture, and their efforts have caught the attention of Rolling Stone magazine.
A story posted this morning on the national magazine’s website explains the purpose of a new venture called D Tour, which Hartke Presents owners Adam and Jessie Hartke helped conceive and found. Jessie Hartke is extensively quoted in the Rolling Stone piece, and the couple is standing front and center in the accompanying photograph.
The headline: “Can this new collective of indie venues revolutionize touring?”
D Tour, Jessie Hartke says, is a “national tour booking cooperative” whose affiliates are promoters and indie music venue owners across the country. Their goal is to work together not only to help foster the careers of up-and-coming indie artists but also to make it as easy as possible for those artists to book shows in independently-owned venues.
“If it’s a 20-date tour, the artist has to reach out to that many venues or promoters,” Jessie Hartke said. “Because of that, independent rooms lose shows to larger corporations. We’re trying to create a little more ease for mom-and-pop operations to be able to get more shows.”
With D Tour, artists will have one point of contact that results in shows at independent venues across the country. Their affiliates range from small clubs to 8,000-seat theaters.
The company is launching its efforts by putting together a tour featuring up-and-coming artist Elise Trouw, a California-based multi-instrumentalist, drummer and singer who has a massive social media following. D Tour is still booking dates for Trouw’s summer tour, but they’ll all be at independent venues associated with D Tour founders or affiliates.
The idea for D Tour was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Jessie Hartke. When shutdowns happened across the country, music venues went dark, which particularly hurt independent venues. The Hartkes own the Wave venue at 650 E. Second and also co-own The Cotillion at 11120 W. Kellogg, and Adam Hartke was a vocal advocate of the Save Our Stages Act, which was part of a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package that earmarked $15 billion in grants for independent venues.
“The people we met in the trenches, we became very, very close with, and they’re now dear friends,” Jessie Hartke said. “We made it through, and we all reopened. We always said, ‘First we survive and then we thrive,’ and we’re so grateful we’re at the part where we survived. Now, we want to work together to create a healthier environment for independent venues and promoters across the country.”
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 10:38 AM.
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