Harnessing the power of community for live music

Canadian arts news — Toronto’s Hugh’s Room is trying to do what almost no live music venue in Canada has managed: buy its own building. A historic church east of downtown, a $4 million price tag, a unanimous city council loan guarantee, and a community that already raised $150,000 once before. This is what saving live music actually looks like.

By Maplestime Arts Desk | Toronto, Ontario | September 19, 2026

Sources: Hugh’s Room Live, Metcalf Foundation | Last updated: September 19, 2026

Key Takeaways

• Hugh’s Room, a beloved Toronto live music venue, wants to buy a historic church as its permanent home
• The building’s owner agreed to a $4 million price and gave the venue until the end of June to find the purchase money
• Toronto City Council unanimously agreed to guarantee a loan for about half the purchase price
• Vancity Community Investment Bank agreed to lend the city-guaranteed amount
• The venue still needs community donations and a Canadian Heritage Cultural Spaces grant covering 50% of the acquisition
• Registered as a charity in 2017, Hugh’s Room first raised $150,000 entirely from individual donations — and covered its costs within two years
• Winnipeg’s West End Cultural Centre, which bought a former church in 1987, is the precedent

The Problem Nobody Solved: Venues Can’t Afford Rent

The pandemic hit the live music industry extremely hard in Canada. Many venues, with no income for two years, closed permanently. But even before the pandemic, many venues were struggling with increasingly unaffordable rents.

That led the people behind Hugh’s Room to ask a blunt question: is there a way to put live music venues on solid financial footing — footing that lets them focus on artists and their development instead of fighting the landlord?

Their answer: stop renting. Own the building. Fund it with community, not investors.

Twenty Years of Hugh’s Room

Richard Carson founded Hugh’s Room in memory of his brother and owned it for 17 years. He built its reputation as the place musicians want to play — a room with a captivated, engaged audience, always.

Hugh’s Room presents more than 200 concerts a year. Over its twenty years it hosted Canadian artists like Jane Siberry, Michael Occhipinti (also one of its programmers), Carlos del Junco, Dione Taylor, and Connie Kaldor, plus international acts including Maria Doyle Kennedy, Pete Seeger, and Judy Collins.

In 2017, the venue registered as a charity: Hugh’s Room Live.

The Charity Model That Worked — Until the Landlord Didn’t

The thinking is straightforward. Live music venues don’t make money — they’re mostly labours of love. Because of that, they don’t attract investors. Theatre relies on donors and patrons; as a charity, a venue can build a community that donates and volunteers, and those people become loyal patrons.

It worked. When the charity opened in 2017, the community raised the necessary $150,000 entirely from individual donations. Within two years, the audience had grown to the point that revenue covered costs.

Then the landlord demanded much higher rent — far more than the operation could afford. In March 2020, Hugh’s Room reluctantly let the space go and closed its doors.

The saving grace came a week later: COVID-19 hit, everything closed, and with no revenue and no venue, there was also no rent to pay. The hiatus gave them time to imagine what Hugh’s Room could become.

Staging Change — and a Church for Sale

The team was invited into the Metcalf Foundation’s Staging Change program for arts organizations — designed to provide “tools to unearth deep-seated challenges and develop resilient solutions.” It energized them.

With renewed determination to re-open, they expanded the board and got to work. The goal: get away from rent and find a permanent home they own.

They found it — a historic church just east of downtown Toronto. The main hall keeps the intimacy and warmth the concerts were known for; the basement means music-oriented activities for the local community and support for emerging musicians — a music school for kids, workshops for songwriters.

Could they buy it with real estate prices rising outrageously? Pieces started falling into place:

• The building’s owner agreed to a $4 million price and gave them until the end of June to find the money — remarkable patience in a hot market.
• Toronto City Council, recognizing the dire state of live music, unanimously agreed in February to provide a loan guarantee for about half the purchase price.
• Vancity Community Investment Bank agreed to lend the city-guaranteed amount.

Several pieces still needed to fall into place fast: sufficient and timely financial support from the community, and a substantial grant from Canadian Heritage’s Cultural Spaces program covering 50 per cent of the acquisition.

The Winnipeg Precedent

There’s proof this works. Winnipeg’s West End Cultural Centre, founded by Mitch Podolak (who also founded the Winnipeg Folk Festival), bought a former church in 1987. That project has been hugely successful — a community arts hub still thriving nearly four decades later.

Locally, the team is inspired by Massey Hall’s $184M revitalization project, also built heavily on donations and government funding.

But the point they keep making: artists don’t play Massey Hall’s stage without first building their careers in smaller venues with supportive audiences. Hugh’s Room has supported artists for twenty years — and a permanent home means it doesn’t stop now.

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Maplestime will provide updates on Hugh’s Room and Toronto’s live music scene as announcements are made.

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Should cities go further and guarantee the survival of small live music venues — or is ownership the only answer? Tell us in the comments. And share this with every Canadian who believes live music is worth more than a condo conversion.