​After five year Run, music venue The New Direction to close

By Matthew Musacchia

On Wednesday, July 27, the concert venue The New Direction announced through a Facebook post that with “heavy hearts” it would be closing after final shows on the 23rd and 24th of September.

TND has been hosting all-ages concerts and acts for five years at 14 Roberts Street, since March 2011 when the Red Raven Espresso Parlor moved to a different location. It was known for booking acts that did not limit the audience by age restrictions. The venue’s Facebook post said that after “extended talks” with the landlord, they were unable create a beneficial financial agreement.

“Essentially what happened there was that there was some stuff going on within the building” said owner Jack Stenerson “and we couldn’t really make it work anymore.”

Stenerson and nine others operate The New Direction, quite literally an underground venue in downtown Fargo. Entered by using a stairwell in front of the Section 9 Cyber Café, a small concrete stairway leads a concert-goer down into a brightly painted stone hall before arriving at the actual location. A front desk and room with chairs and booths greet him or her upon arrival, while a small hall leads to a low-ceilinged, stone room in the back that is the actual concert space.

Stenerson said The New Direction usually booked acts when touring bands were coming through and hosted roughly two or three shows a week, on average. A band would usually contact him or an associate, and they would decide whether to arrange a show. Although mostly a music venue, The New Direction would host other gatherings as well, such as graduation parties and a wedding reception.

Stenerson said that since the time it was the Red Raven, the location has always been a place for all-ages shows, something he said they at The New Direction wanted to keep because they felt it was needed in the community. He said one of their tag lines is “all-ages always.” Before becoming a touring musician, Stenerson himself started playing there in 2006 at age fifteen, and said that he “grew up in this space.”

Since posting the announcement on Facebook, the post has been shared 148 times and garnered 47 comments as of Saturday. Stenerson has said the response on Facebook especially has been “insane” and something he never expected.

“People just kind of pouring like what TND meant to them, really” he said. “Like, going to their first show when they were fifteen years old back in 2012 in high school or something like that, and like how it’s been such a home to people throughout the years. I mean it’s more than just a venue or place to do shows, I mean it’s really a community… They’ll come here and know, they’ll know they’ll run into somebody they know and they’ll have a good time and they’ll just know it’s just a positive environment for people to be themselves or let out some aggression or do whatever they want really.”

Stenerson said the part of the space will now be used for storage, but the front portion will be up for rent again. He says while opening up a new venue is always in the “back of his mind,” there are no solid plans that this will happen yet. Since he works full time elsewhere Stenerson says it will be nice to have a break from preparation of shows and the associated work of running a venue, at least before potentially jumping into something similar again. He hopes to keep all-ages music alive in the area, and still will try to bring maybe “one or two” shows a month in town, depending on where he can get them. Although Stenerson says this is easier to do when he has his own venue, he would like to see something good come out of the closing.

“I’m also hoping that this -- us leaving -- will kind of open the door and inspire the younger kids to start booking their own shows” Stenerson said. “And start like building their own community with it too, because I mean it’s been us for however long, so it’s cool to have a passing of the torch to the next generation.”

Despite the closing of the venue, Stenerson described his time operating The New Direction in positive terms.

“What I’m going to miss the most is people coming in here and saying ‘this is the coolest venue I’ve ever been to, this is the best place we’ve ever played.’ I mean you hear that from so many bands, I mean that’s such like an inspiration. Because when we opened this space we were all in touring bands, we’d all seen a bunch of venues around the country we wanted to just take the best of what we saw and put it all together into one space and I think we were really successful in that way, so for both bands and people going to concerts it’s been a very positive experience and everybody loves this space thinking it’s like a magical space.”