After high-profile rebranding, Maverick's Live seeks $85,000 to stay afloat

[thelakelander]

After a high-profile rebranding to Mavericks Live, the bar and live music venue is asking its fans for $85,000 to pay employees and cover operational costs.

The music venue at the Jacksonville Landing, which rebranded last year in order to separate itself from its image as a county bar, posted in a lengthy Facebook post that it needed to collect $85,000 in the next 12 days to stay operable.

Full article: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/blog/morning-edition/2016/01/after-high-profile-rebranding-mavericks-live-seeks.html

[Tacachale]

Womp womp.

[acme54321]

Maybe it should have stayed a country bar?

[funwithteeth]

Per their FB post on the matter, business wasn't great as a country bar. The rebranding was an attempt to increase business, which, well, didn't work out.

That's a lot of money in a very short time span.

[Overstreet]

Let's see,
a. very loud so much you can't recognize the lyrics....
b. short on seating.....
c. no food.....
d. sight lines obscured by columns....

Maybe if I was 40 years younger and a boozer. It's got nothing for me.  Going in and out of business and locations is typical for honky-tonks in Jacksonville. 

[coredumped]

They've been there as country bar for many many years, how could they not have been profitable? I was a regular there for years. It went down hill when they got rid of both the DJ (bobby) and the line dance instructor (lee).
After that, the people that I saw every weekend stopped coming, and with the mavericks live thing all the regulars were done.
I hope they get it back to its glory. It was one of the best honky tanks I've been to (and I've been to many!)

[coredumped]

Got a refund on my donation last week, and received this today:

Hello all, hopefully by now, all of you have received the refunds from your very generous contributions via the recent PayPal Crowdfunding campaign for Mavericks. I just wanted to take the time to say "Thank You" once again for trying to help us out! Our doors ARE still open and we are going to continue to fight, as we always have and get through this challenge! We are blessed to have a dedicated staff, who continue to stand behind us and support all of our efforts -and- we are equally as blessed to have people such as yourselves, who care about their welfare and our strive to stay in business!

We have had a couple of good weeks of business, since the campaign post and we have an incredible concert & event line-up coming up over the next several months, to help us get to where we need to be. So, all we need is for you to keep coming out, spread the word about all of our great shows and events and we will make it through this! Please take the time to review everything we have coming up, by going on our website and I would be honored to get you a couple of tickets to any of the shows you would like to attend, as a small token of my appreciation...just write me back what you want to see! I hope you will take me up on this offer and again, on behalf of my partners and staff...Thank You for YOUR SUPPORT! Darrin

Ps. If for some reason, you have not received the funding back into your accounts, PLEASE email me back individually, so we can resolve the matter immediately.

So good news, looks like their FB post helped them out quite a bit! Glad to see they'll be sticking around!

[David]

Just saw a show there last night, it was decent, one of the better experiences i've had in Jax honestly. Freebirds is closing soon, jack Rabbits is for those smaller shows, 1904 & Underbelly are smaller compared to Mavericks, so they might be able to fill in the medium size venue niche that we're lacking.

[Dapperdan]

Is there room in there for a small kitchen? I remember it from Club Paris days and it looked like a humongous space.

[JaxJersey-licious]

Although it's good to hear that there are brighter days for Mavericks on the horizon with a decent lineup of musical acts booked, it comes with one important caveat - UNDERBELLY has been shuttered "temporarily"!! (so they say)

This is what frustrates me about the Jax DT music scene: You hear how it has grown and never been better with all these plans for new venues when at the end of the day these clubs appear to be canabilzing each other for what business there is. I've been hoping that these are temporary setbacks but with that one step forward two steps back start  model the scene seems to be going with, eventually downtown just runs out of steps.

[Tacachale]

Although it's good to hear that there are brighter days for Mavericks on the horizon with a decent lineup of musical acts booked, it comes with one important caveat - UNDERBELLY has been shuttered "temporarily"!! (so they say)

This is what frustrates me about the Jax DT music scene: You hear how it has grown and never been better with all these plans for new venues when at the end of the day these clubs appear to be canabilzing each other for what business there is. I've been hoping that these are temporary setbacks but with that one step forward two steps back start  model the scene seems to be going with, eventually downtown just runs out of steps.

No place stays open forever. Underbelly is/was a killer space, hopefully someone who can make it work again will snap it up.

[JaxJersey-licious]

Although it's good to hear that there are brighter days for Mavericks on the horizon with a decent lineup of musical acts booked, it comes with one important caveat - UNDERBELLY has been shuttered "temporarily"!! (so they say)

This is what frustrates me about the Jax DT music scene: You hear how it has grown and never been better with all these plans for new venues when at the end of the day these clubs appear to be canabilzing each other for what business there is. I've been hoping that these are temporary setbacks but with that one step forward two steps back start  model the scene seems to be going with, eventually downtown just runs out of steps.

No place stays open forever. Underbelly is/was a killer space, hopefully someone who can make it work again will snap it up.

Understood, but given the paucity of venues currently in DT, having a decent sized quality music venue like Underbelly go dark can put a serious damper on whatever momentum nigthlife in the area was gaining. The key to that part of downtown being an attraction and ultimately a key cog in it's revitalization is having numerous options of entertainment which DT Jax unfortunately lacks. And these venues need to show that they can stand firmly on their own to keep on attracting more venues and more people to offset the occasional bar or club closure. It certainly won't look good if Underbelly were to reopen and months later Mavericks would feel the need to pass out the virtual tip jar again.