Karli IngersollDan Hoerner is a musician originally from Spokane with his most shining resume piece being that he played in the band Sunny Day Real Estate. Rumors started flowing a while back that someone was going to reopen The Big Dipper. When I heard it was Dan, I got excited because of the sole reason that a musician was reconnecting with home turf in Spokane and choosing to get involved. I love it when artistic people relocate back (or for the first time) to Spokane. It feels like our cultural value goes up or we get another player on our team.
THE BIG DIPPER INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN
I have some memories of The Big Dipper. None are particularly fond regarding the actual space. If anything, it has some slightly negative connotations in my mind because I feel like the location was a big struggle for Chrisy and Michelle, the owners of Empyrean after they put a bunch of work and time into the space only to close a year later. But I have seen a lot of great shows there…Head and The Heart, Local Natives, John Vanderslice, Bowerbirds, The Black Angels. For more info on the history of the space, the Inlander published a great piece last week that is definitely worth checking out.
Dan and his team have spent some time now working on the space aesthetically. Nothing too dramatic has changed, but it’s cleaner and definitely upgraded. They want to really take things to the next level to keep the place going and they need Spokane’s help. Here’s the pitch…
Now, I’ve seen quite a bit of push back on this campaign as can be common with crowd funding small businesses. We experienced a bit when raising money for The Bartlett just over a year ago. Some people don’t like crowd funding and that’s understandable. But either way you look at it, this is something that IS good for Spokane. A collective team of people are unified in their efforts to bring more music and art and community to the city. It does take trust to drop some dollars into someone’s pocket that you don’t know and hope that they use it wisely. And I can speak from experience that it’s a lot of pressure on the business owner side to do just that. You are burdened with new focus, new determination and drive as the community gets behind you not just with words but with real, tangible investment. It’s not something taken lightly and I’m all in on my bet that this new Big Dipper crew at least feels a bit of that.
Whether you have doubts, or you are fully on board, they’ve put together a pretty killer campaign with some great art from local designers in tshirt and poster format. Don’t think of it as giving free money, think of it as buying a sweet product that benefits a new local business…which in turn benefits a whole lot of artists down the road including your neighborhood musician. Check out the full campaign featuring art like this poster by Derek Welch.
THE BIG DIPPER INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN
Consider it. Good things come to cities that support music and art and culture. Spokane is doing a pretty good job of that right now, but there’s no reason we should stop now. Share the campaign, pledge today and watch as this great community continues to say “YES!” to any and all people who want to participate in making Spokane a better place.