This week, the personalities who keep Sacramento’s live music scene going walked into the Auditorium at CLARA on a mission: Owners and managers from Harlow’s, Sac Yard House, The Torch Club and the Side Door all met at the historic icon on 24^th Street to share ideas for keeping the performance landscape soldiering on. Things aren’t entirely rosy for Sacramento sound. Debt and financial wounds from the pandemic still linger for many businesses. The information apparatus for promoting live events and show dates in the city has been shattered (though it’s trying to regenerate through Solving Sacramento). And the alcohol sales that keep the lights on at many clubs are down, especially with younger patrons. 
 
Sitting at a kind of round table with SN&R’s publisher, several journalists and a rep from the city, these music bookers discussed the next steps towards innovation; and they were doing so in a grand piece of Midtown history that itself is being used as one of the solutions for re-booting the arts.
 
CLARA’s brick behemoth of a former school has long been admired for its Spanish Revival architecture, though recently it’s also become a bustling center of community life. The structure was donated to CLARA’s nonprofit in 2015 by the Sacramento Unified School District in exchange for it becoming a home for arts education.   
 
“We pay our rent by providing arts education back into the school districts – and back to Sac Unified,” said Megan Wygant, CLARA’s executive director, adding that her organization has also established partnerships with other school districts like Natomas Unified and San Juan Unified, thanks largely to California’s recent passage of Prop. 28.

“Through that, we’ve built a pretty robust arts education wing that serves about a hundred classrooms a week through live residencies,” Wygant went on, “and most of those are now funded by Prop. 28, starting this year.” 
 
But beyond the students coming in and out, CLARA is full of energy because a number of Sacramento’s cultural groups have residency there. In other words, they’re each a permanent tenant in the immense, storied building. These groups include Sacramento Ballet, Capital Stage, Work of Art, Beas Academy and McKeever School of Irish Dance. During the darkest days of the pandemic, CLARA’s team knew that the arts groups who rented space were struggling to survive. As soon as CLARA received its funds through the American Rescue Plan Act, the team used the money to lower rents for their tenants. 
 
“One of the things I was pretty proud of is, because of the support we got from the city, we were able to lower the rent rates for our tenants during the pandemic and help sort of protect them and pass that along,” Wygant recalled. 
 
However, now that 2024 has arrived, the ARPA funds are running out. That means CLARA has to make adjustments, not to mention cope with the myriad of inflationary costs that have been building in the last four years. Wygant doesn’t want to respond to those challenges with unsustainable rent hikes for the cultural groups. Instead, CLARA will be renting out more of its rooms and event spaces for gatherings like the music venue owners who arrived this week.  
 
“We are expanding our events and looking to use our spaces around the clock,” Wygant noted. “We can do conferences in the day time, and still do Saturday morning, afternoon or mid-day events, both classes and actual fundraisers. We’re hoping to do more ticketed events. CLARA itself is offering professional development classes for artists in the community, too.” 
 
Renting a space for one’s event at CLARA isn’t just getting an interesting venue and ambiance, it’s helping sustain numerous other arts and culture groups in the city. 
 
For anyone who wants to see what the building is like firsthand, there are still a few tickets available for Solving Sacramento’s upcoming fundraiser there on Sept. 5. The evening features food, drinks and two live recordings of Solving Sacramento’s Creativity in the Capital podcast. The stars of the night will be noted radio voice Nick Brunner, who hosts a conversation between Sacramento writer Josh Fernandez, creator of the “This Is What It Feels Like” podcast, and Rituals of Mine musician Terra Lopez, as well as KSSU FM host Casey Rafter leading a conversation between ‘the blues beast’ Mick Martin and G.I.R.L.S. Rock Sacramento co-founder Larisa Bryski. Tickets can be purchased here.