Seattle
Miner’s Landing at Pier 57 on Seattle’s waterfront is like the city’s boardwalk. It’s where visitors find the Seattle Great Wheel, restaurants and a carousel, and it’s where groups can perform for crowds of tourists, families and kids, said Katy Willis, director of convention services for Visit Seattle.
“The waterfront is active and busy and beautiful,” Willis said.
In Pioneer Square, the city’s historic downtown, visitors will find Occidental Square, a brick-paved, sunken park pavilion surrounded by historic buildings and towering trees that “would be a wonderful place to have music,” Willis said. Several walking tours are available in Pioneer Square, including Seattle Underground. The tour takes people below the streets to old town’s hidden basement, passageways that were once Pioneer Square’s ground floor before officials raised the streets up one story to avoid flooding.
But the biggest crowds would likely be found at Seattle Center, a massive park complex that is home to the Space Needle, the Pacific Science Center, the EMP Museum, Chihuly Garden and Glass, the Key Area and the monorail that was built for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. In the center of the park is the 1939 Armory, also known as the Center House, which houses several local eateries, as well as Center House Stage on the main floor. More than 3,000 free public performances occur in the Armory every year, everything from yo-yo competitions to cultural dance performances, Willis said. Outside the Armory is the Mural Amphitheater with a stage and large lawn.
“Anybody can do anything,” she said of performing opportunities there. “It couldn’t be more public; people are constantly coming in and out.”
Westlake Center, the central downtown mall, has a large outdoor pavilion that is the site of a summer concert series.
“It’s incredibly public; that’s kind of big-time,” Willis said. “There are guaranteed huge crowds there because so many people are walking by.”
Although groups need to make their own performance arrangements, Visit Seattle acts as a liaison for planners and will gladly “make a warm introduction,” Willis said.
Newport News, Virginia
Newport News sits on the Virginia Peninsula surrounded by the James River and the Chesapeake Bay. That’s why the Virginia Living Museum is one of the area’s most representative venues, said Barb Kleiss, group marketing manager for the Newport News Tourism Development Office. It’s a living museum that’s part zoo, part aquarium and part planetarium, and groups that perform there can take in living exhibits that re-create a cypress swamp, an Appalachian cove and the Chesapeake Bay’s underwater world.
“It’s everything indigenous to the state of Virginia,” Kleiss said. “It’s everything fish, fowl and fauna you can find here.”
The center has several areas where groups can perform, including indoor exhibit space and an outdoor amphitheater. After performing and checking out the museum, groups can stay for dinner and even have keepers give a private animal show.
Bands and choirs can also arrange to perform at the Mariners’ Museum, which has summer concerts on the front lawn Thursday nights. Everybody brings food and drinks and spreads out on blankets to enjoy the music, Kleiss said. Groups can also perform in the main lobby — which has great acoustics, she said — beneath the giant 1881 golden eagle figurehead that was carved for the USS Lancaster.
Port Warwick is a mixed-use development anchored by Styron Square, a three-acre park. In the middle of the square is Grant Pavilion, complete with a gazebo, where the community puts on a summer concert series Wednesday nights. Groups can perform while people gather around in lawn chairs or play lawn games nearby.
One of the best places to guarantee an audience is at the Ferguson Center for the Arts, which draws big-name performers such as Harry Connick Jr. and Sarah McLachlan. Groups can perform in the foyer area before a concert or take a behind-the-scenes tour.
