***UPDATE: A small number of new tickets to the Shins' June 1 show at the Orpheum go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster and the State Theatre box office. The best seats will be saved for fans who already have tickets. Those will be given out first-come, first-served at the State box office, also starting Friday at 10 a.m. (and up until day of show).
Three weeks after its overcrowded opening concert left fans crying foul, the Brick nightclub in downtown Minneapolis announced plans Tuesday to move ahead with renovations — and to move more of its sold-out concerts to new venues in the meantime.
The three-story Warehouse District event facility, which is run by Los Angeles-based concert industry giant AEG Live, will lower its ticket-sale capacity, add risers to improve sightlines in its balcony, and install 25 new TV monitors. It has already raised the height of its stage by a foot and started work on doubling the front entrance to four doors.
Until all the improvements can be finished over the next two months, though, the club's operators are seeking new homes for many of their biggest shows. They already moved Friday's sold-out gig with No. 1 band fun. to Myth nightclub in Maplewood, a venue with a 3,000-person capacity that is almost double to the Brick's disputed size.
Other concerts on the Brick calendar that will be moved include:
Incubus, May 9, to Myth
Shinedown, May 15, to Myth
Marilyn Manson, May 18, to Myth
The Shins, June 1, to the Orpheum Theatre
All original tickets for the Brick's relocated concerts will be honored at the new locations. A limited number of general admission tickets for Incubus, Shinedown and Marilyn Manson will go on sale right away Wednesday at 10am through Ticketmaster. An e-mail will be sent to Shins concertgoers on how to exchange their general-admission tickets for reserved seats, which will start Friday at 10 a.m. at the State Theatre box office.
"No matter what, we want these shows to be successful, and for the fans to get what they paid for," said the Brick's general manager Jeff Kehr, who issued the apology offering fans a refund to the overcrowded March 19 opener with Jane's Addiction. "I think a lot of the problems [at Jane's Addiction] had to do with the ebb and flow of the room, and we think we are fixing those issues with these renovations."
Kehr did not say what the Brick's new ticket-sale capacity will be once the improvements are made, except to say, "We will err on the side of caution for the foreseeable future."
