Behind the doors of Des Moines’ music venues
3/5/2025
A performance at Wooly’s.
Photo by Jayme Bigger.
Des Moines, and Iowa at large, are often considered a flyover city and state. Tour locations for big-name music artists often include Minneapolis, Kansas City, Chicago, even Omaha — and then, maybe, Des Moines.
Wells Fargo Arena certainly attracts household names, though. In recent years, Lil Wayne, Zach Bryan and Morgan Wallen have all performed at the arena. But still, far too often, the Hawkeye state and its capital are passed by.
The good news for Des Moines music lovers is that the local scene is alive and well. New venues like the Vibrant Music Hall in Waukee are popping up, and older ones, like Val Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, have been refurbished. Both venues are much shorter drives than crossing north, south, east or west across state lines. For even shorter drives, maybe even a walk, look for music venues spread throughout Des Moines.
CITYVIEW wanted to take the temperature of the local music scene. To do so, we reached out to several venues, some new like xBk Live, and some established, like Hoyt Sherman Place and the Temple Theater. We talked to staff at First Fleet Concerts, which books shows across the state, and heard directly from a local artist, Allegra Hernandez, who has experience playing in many of these spots.
Brad Turk performs at xBk Live. Photo by Joelle Blanchard
Origins
Two of the venues we spoke to have roots firmly planted in Des Moines. Hoyt Sherman was one of the founders of Des Moines. His home, built in 1877, is still a part of Hoyt Sherman Place at 1501 Woodland Ave in Des Moines. The home was empty for several years after his death until the Des Moines Women’s Club found a new use for it.
“The Des Moines Women’s Club petitioned the city to allow them to use it as their clubhouse for $1 per year. They raised the funds to add an art gallery on the west side of the home (1907) and a theater on the east side (1923),” Allison Fegley Johnson, chief operating officer at Hoyt Sherman Place, said.
This continued until the 1990s when, due to declining membership, the Des Moines Women’s Club made the decision to form the nonprofit Hoyt Sherman Place Foundation which runs the facility to this day.
The Temple Theater is on the second floor of the Temple for Performing Arts building at 1011 Locust in Des Moines. The structure was once considered one of the “most endangered” buildings by the National Historical Registry. Through the help of some downtown partners, the space was renovated in 2002, and it became a solid fit for Des Moines Performing Arts. With the Civic Center being too large, and the Stoner Theater being too booked up, DMPA needed somewhere to put on a production of “Triple Espresso.”
“We jumped at the opportunity. We were looking for another smaller space. We ran ‘Triple Espresso’ for over a year in the space, which was not the initial plan. It was only going to run a few weeks. We took a little bit of a pause after that long run of ‘Triple,’ but then, around 2006, we really re-engaged, and we’ve been doing small theatrical productions and music in it ever since,” Brooke Bridenstine, programming manager at DMPA, said.
First Fleet Concerts is a promotional company started by Sam Summers that books artists, comedians and festivals, including Hinterland. According to Parker Reed, advertising manager, and Zeke Whetstone, promoter, Summers began booking shows while he was at Iowa State University as a passion project, and it grew from there. A notable booking by Summers in his early days was booking Fallout Boy to perform at Skate West in 2005.
Allegra Hernandez performs at xBk Live for Studio One all access. Photo by Madeleine King
xBk Live was opened by Tobi Parks in 2019, right before the start of the pandemic. It managed to survive a tough break at the start and has found success.
“A great time to start a music venue,” Operations Manager Derek Lambert joked. “Tobi, the owner, moved here from Brooklyn, hence the name xBk. She wanted to open a really nice venue here and prove that the Midwest could be a destination. A place for bands traveling through, and not just like a necessity on the way, but maybe some place that they actually want to return to and feel excited about.”
Allegra Hernandez grew up with music as a part of life. Hernandez started taking piano lessons at age 9 and guitar lessons at 12.
“I would oftentimes just not be very responsible with homework assignments or keeping track of due dates. But, every day, I would come home and, for hours, just play music or listen to music or just do anything music-related,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez, who was inspired by Mary Anne Sims, the director of City Voices Des Moines, auditioned with a guitar performance at McNally Smith College of Music and was accepted, subsequently graduating from the Berklee College of Music in 2020.
Booking shows
Deciding what types of shows to book not only includes knowing what your audience likes, but also what the venue itself can handle. Hoyt Sherman Place officials say they often partner with third-party ticket promoters for ticketed events.
“As far as deciding what acts to bring, we have had great success with singer-songwriters and comedians over the years, so we always prioritize that type of entertainment. Classic rock is another great genre for us, but we are always up for trying something new, as long as it makes sense in a fixed-seat theater such as ours,” Johnson said.
The Temple Theater stage provides an intimate, close-up performance that keeps audiences engaged. Photo courtesy of DMPA
The Temple Theater is a smaller venue, often called more intimate. Officials say they have not experienced difficulty finding acts to get on stage that also get audience participation.
“I think it felt like a void that we could help fill. We’ve seen some changes in the local music scene — lost some venues, seen some new venues — and it felt like an opportunity to jump in,” Bridenstine said.
Several angles are worked by First Fleet Concerts to fill the spaces they help book, which include Wooly’s at 504 E. Locust St. in the East Village and Val Air Ballroom at 301 Ashworth Road in West Des Moines.
“It’s a mix of what the artist wants with their routing. They have a team of management and agency that kind of builds a routing for them, and then it’s a matter of relationships from there. Then, what rooms do we have? There are different pros to each one with the capacities and what an artist may need, whether it’s standing or seated. A lot of it falls on what the artist needs,” Whetstone said.
Other times, it’s First Fleet Concerts that reaches out first.
“Sometimes part of it is me reaching out. I’ll see tours get announced and see it’s within the region and say, ‘Here’s our venue that makes sense for this. And here’s why it would make sense,’ ” Whetstone said.
“Bill (Rogers, talent booker) is our guy that handles the calendar. The majority of the stuff comes to him. People are reaching out because they’re coming through the area and need a date,” Lambert said. “For local artists, it’s nice that we get the opportunity to provide local bands with support slots occasionally, meaning that they get to open up for a touring act. And then we also do a lot of events with just local artists.”
Hernandez has performed at Wooly’s, Lefty’s, xBk, Gas Lamp, the Rollins Mansion, cocktail bars and local festivals like 80/35 and the Des Moines Arts Festival. Getting booked at these local venues is a mix of reaching out and being contacted by them.
“If someone reaches out to you first, that’s a pretty easy way to get booked, because usually they want you to play. But when you’re reaching out, I would say smaller venues get back to you in a really timely manner… At bigger venues, you really can’t get booked if you’re a local artist unless you’re maybe opening for someone,” Hernandez said. “That’s just how it is. I would say that’s a more universal thing.”
Hoyt Sherman Place has strong partnerships with local organizations like Ballet Des Moines and the Civic Music Association among others that helps provide diverse programming.
Supporting the music community
Supporting local artists can happen in a variety of forms, from inspiring talent to getting people to come to shows and into other venues around the community.
“Having a rich arts and culture scene is important for a thriving community. If we want to attract top talent to work and live here, we must have good entertainment options to keep them here. Each of the local music venues creates an economic impact in the community — hotel nights, restaurant/bar patrons, etc. We all benefit from each other,” Johnson said.
As far as fostering and promoting local talent, the Temple Theater put together its “Made in the Midwest” series, which will feature Hernandez on March 25.
“We had a desire to work with more local and regional artists to help uplift that entire scene, And it worked out really well,” Bridenstine said. “I started doing some research about who from our area plays consistently, writes original music and landed on these five wonderful acts for this spring. There’s something about having the focus only on the artist that I think will create a really cool experience, both for the audience and for the artists.”
Touring acts sometimes bring opening acts with them. However, when they don’t, that opens the door for First Fleet Contacts as a local promoter to use its connections to reach out to local artists and get them on stage at larger venues than they would normally be able to perform at.
“As long as their team is open to it, I’m sending names and sending links and trying to get local artists involved in shows,” Whetstone said.
LIVE MUSIC VENUESDes Moines is home to many live music venues beyond the ones covered in this story. Here are more local music venues for concert-goers to enjoy: DES MOINES CIVIC CENTER HOYT SHERMAN PLACE NOCE WELLS FARGO ARENA VIBRANT MUSIC HALL VAL AIR BALLROOM WOOLY’S LEFTY’S LIVE MUSIC Lauridsen Amphitheater XBK TEMPLE THEATER HORIZON EVENTS CENTER SHESLOW AUDITORIUM CAPTAIN ROY’S GREENWOOD LOUNGE |
“What’s nice about being such a small office is that we’re very collaborative,” Reed said. “Zeke will sometimes just ask, ‘Do you know anyone that might fit this band that’s coming through?’ The one that comes to mind most recently was when Mr. Softheart (an Iowa post-punk band) got added to play for Underoath at Val Air Ballroom. It’s really awesome when just the right fit works out.”
xBk Live was lauded by First Fleet Concerts for the venue’s ability to get local acts on stage in supporting roles and more.
“The support slots for sure get people in front of an audience that wouldn’t have otherwise known about them in a lot of cases,” Lambert said. “A lot of people would do their album release shows here or just put together a bill that can draw enough people to warrant a room of this size.”
Hernandez, who says 2024 was solid in terms of getting booked for shows, is also the director of GRIT (Girls Rock Informational Technologies) for Girls Rock Des Moines, a nonprofit that serves girls, transgender and gender non-conforming youth ages 7-18, as well as adults with an adult retreat once a year.
What’s in store for the future
Hoyt Sherman Place will feature a variety of performances.
“We have fully built out our ‘campus’ to include additional artist amenities, meeting spaces and office space behind the stage and revitalized the front lawn using the original plans from 1910. As we look to the future, we will continue to find ways to use these newer spaces, as well as the historic ones, to their full potential,” Johnson said.
Bridenstine at Temple Theater would like to see their space used to its full potential in the future.
“I think we would use it to continue to program both regional and local acts and bring touring acts that need that 300-seat space. It’s a unique size, but there are acts for that, and we need to find them. I would love to turn it into a year-round space,” Bridenstine said.
When asked about the future, Whetstone and Reed joked about getting Chappel Roan into Wooly’s. Last year, during Roan’s meteoric rise, she had to be moved from Wooly’s to Val Air for accommodations. Other than that, “keep on keeping on” is the motto.
“For me, it’s building on the amount of shows that we have coming into Des Moines and the quality of shows. Trying to keep them as diverse as possible and as many as possible. Des Moines, historically, is in the flyover zone, and that’s something that I know we all have tried tirelessly to change,” Whetstone said.
“I think the bookings are spot on right now,” Reed said. “Just because your favorite band hasn’t been booked yet doesn’t mean we aren’t working on it. I think the amount of shows that we get is amazing, especially compared to how people talk about it from 30 years ago.”
xBk Live recently expanded its space, adding a 45-seat venue next door for solo or duo artists who might not be able to fill the main location.
“As far as the main space, we just keep trying to fine-tune things and make it as good of a venue as it can be and always working on getting bigger and better artists in here that people want to come see,” Lambert said. “The new space next door is going to be sort of like an annex to the venue but will also host its own events sometimes. The vision for it is to be a community-building space — a smaller space that’s sort of accessible for anybody to put on any sort of event over there. That’s just another way to build community outside of live music or with live music.”
Hernandez says the scene is thriving but it does ebb and flow. When festivals pop up, the attention is back on the scene. But when those events aren’t around, people might not realize how much local music is being performed. It will take a group effort to nurture and grow the local music community, Hernandez adds.
“I think that it’s a collaboration among everyone, among the artists themselves, among music professionals and venues, and then also among music enthusiasts and listeners. It will take a collaborative effort to go from active and successful to becoming consistently thriving and welcoming to everyone,” Hernandez said. ♦
