Into the Dragon Room: Nederlander Takes on Jam in China Club
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With Nederlander clout behind it, Campana says the China Club will book between 50 and 60 national acts and around 100 regional acts a year. Nederlander expects to bring in a wide range of talent, from jazz and folk to country, salsa, and hard rock. Ticket prices will range from around $6 for local bands to $18 for the bigger national acts. Concertgoers will also have access to the rest of the club’s facilities. A number of other local and regional acts, signed by in-house booker Michael Yerke, will be part of the China Club concert lineup for the price of a regular cover charge ranging from $5 to $10. With its new booking arrangement, the club is likely to compete even more aggressively for acts with Park West on the near north side, a facility controlled by Jam Productions.
The Nederlander deal comes in the wake of renovations of the club’s main concert space, the Dragon Room, which have turned it into a location better suited for concerts. The room has a new sound system and improved sight lines, and a large bar that once filled the center of the venue has been moved to one side to increase seating capacity. The room can now accommodate between 600 and 1,000 people, depending on the seating configuration.
Art dealer Marikay Vance of Chicago and South Bend, Indiana, is on the move. Vance, who caused a ruckus when she first opened her unabashedly commercial gallery in the center of the tony River North gallery district last September, is moving her business to a new space on the second and third floors of 675 N. Michigan on September 18. Vance’s sales tactics, which included gold lame swaths in the windows and large bows on paintings, shocked some of her neighbors, who feared she was adversely affecting the low-key image other gallery owners sought to maintain.
