Disclaimer: The Lantern’s “Best of OSU” polling was conducted via social media and should not be considered statistically representative of Ohio State’s extended student body.
Like any city’s music scene, Columbus has drastically changed in the past 40 years.
Concert venues, dive bars and record shops have all come and gone as genres and tastes change from decade to decade.
However, if sitting at the Ohio Union and looking across to the east side of High Street, one may notice a massive marquee hanging over a large set of wooden doors.
This sign belongs to none other than Columbus-renowned music venue Newport Music Hall, voted Columbus’ “Best Music Venue” among The Lantern’s readers for this year’s “Best of OSU” special edition.
Forty years ago, PromoWest Productions — founded by CEO and President Scott Stienecker — bought the rock club, then known as Agora Ballroom, and Newport was born.
Stienecker said the former owners of the venue, the Loconti family, intended to sell the lease to create a Walgreens; but for him, that was never an option.
He called the Loconti family as soon as he heard the news.
“I want[ed] to keep it a rock club, and Hank Loconti said, ‘You know what? Give me $25,000 here by Friday; I’ll sell you the lease.’ I had to scramble, and I raised the capital,” Stienecker said. “I raised $180,000 when I was 23 years old, and sent 25,000 of it back to the Locontis and secured the lease.”
Stienecker, an Ohio native who was living in California at the time, said he moved back to Columbus as soon as the lease was sold and turned the Agora Ballroom into what is now Newport Music Hall.
He said the first challenge Newport would face would be finding acts to perform at the concert venue; however, his experiences at Ohio State and connections in the promotion industry helped.
“I was able to say, ‘Yeah, I used to be the head of the Pep Board for Ohio State, and I worked for Gary Purnell out in Berkeley, California,” Stienecker said. “That’s how I tried to open doors because nobody wanted to talk to a 23-year-old kid.”
In addition, Stienecker said his relationship with concert promoter Dave Lucas would eventually lead to more successful bookings.
“I had gone over and met with him because he wanted to get into Ohio more too, and because he was based in Indianapolis, and he did everything Indiana,” Stienecker said. “The first act that he put in [Newport] was Neil Young.”
From that first show Sept. 10, 1984, Newport Music Hall was officially active. Unfortunately, the rock club would face several other challenges in the months to come.
Steinecker said among other issues, the drinking age being changed from 18 to 21 in the late 1980s challenged the club and its attendance rates.
“I thought that was gonna put us under, but [it] didn’t,” Stienecker said. “We survived the late ‘80s, and then what would happen is when Ohio State would shut down for the summers, it would kill Newport’s business because all those kids would leave.”
As a result, Stienecker reached out to Lucas, proposing the idea to create an amphitheater in Columbus after seeing Lucas create Deer Creek Amphitheater in Indiana in 1989.
“I said, ‘Hey, Dave, can I buy your drawings? I’m going to build one of these in Columbus. I need my summers to be bolstered,’” Stienecker said. “ And he said, ‘No, I won’t sell the drawings, but I’ll be your partner.’ So, he ended up being my partner. And we built the Polaris Amphitheater.”
Stienecker said PromoWest went on to build other venues in the city, such as Kemba Live, A&R Music Bar and The Basement. But even with an influx of new venues, Stienecker knew Newport — which had been active for decades — would remain.
A major reason for the success of Newport, Stienecker said, is the venue’s size.
“The size of it was perfect. I mean, it’s 1,400 capacity, so it’s bigger than most other clubs in the market,” Stienecker said. “Newport is just the perfect size, right across from Ohio State University, and I’ve always been focused on it.”
Marissa McClellan, marketing director at PromoWest Productions, said she believes Newport’s ability to overcome economic challenges has made it a desirable venue for concert-goers.
“For a long time, especially during the recession and the economical issues we were having in 2007-08, [Stienecker] was able to still keep making prices relatively low, so people can still afford to come to shows,” McClellan said. “And, you know, we’ve been able to kind of hold on to that over the years.”
McClellan said she believes the reason for Newport’s longstanding success lies in music fans’ common desire for popular performers to play smaller venues.
“We just had Jack White a couple weeks ago as an underplay,” McClellan said. “We had Green Day in 2017 as an underplay. So, sometimes, [the artists] want to play that grungy, small room too and, you know, kind of go back to the roots.”
Despite the many issues Newport has faced, Stienecker said it’s the little things that keep it timeless.
“The Newport’s as cool today as it was 40 years ago when we opened it,” Stienecker said. “It’s always had that vibe. It’s always had that, you know, Joe Walsh, different people have said, Peter Frampton, Melissa, those people have said, ‘God, this room just has a vibe to it. It’s like a raw rock club.’”
