Under current COVID-19 restrictions, Sean Downing can allow 23 people into Yucca Tap Room for a live performance.
“Do the math,” says the co-owner of the nearly 50-year-old Tempe bar and music venue, which under normal circumstances has a capacity of 165. “We can’t pay the band, pay for alcohol, and pay for staffing with a crowd of 23 people. I’m in the red before I pay the sound guy or my own staff. It is mathematically impossible to run our business like that.”
That s why, after eight months of running a live music venue with no live music, Downing started booking occasional shows in Yucca s parking lot a massive, block-long football field of concrete that s utilized after dark only by Yucca and the Sky High Smoke Shop next door. The shows have been lighter, singer-songwriter stuff, Downing says. The initial performance, on Halloween, was an acoustic set from Jason DeVore of Authority Zero.