According to Nate Fleming the new Executive Director, Lkld Live needs to be less a music venue than a home for creativity as it moves into maturity and its next act in Lakeland.
Fleming replaces Shane Lawlor, organization’s inaugural director, who left Lkld Live to manage The Yard on Mass, a food truck park and beer hall.
Music will remain a mainstay at Lkld LIVE but the downtown venue has a strong following for its musical tribute shows — but the goal is to make it a place where people can experience anything from immersive theater like murder mysteries to improv comedy and art classes in a space that will serve, at times, as a gallery, Fleming said.
Among Fleming’s credits are the founding of Swan City Improv and Lakeland Food Tours. He will continue to run those ventures.
When it started, Lkld Live got free rent at 202 N. Massachusetts Ave. as an in-kind donation from building owner and LkldTV founder Randy Borden. Borden sold the building to Baron Realty last May.
Under the new ownership, Lkld Live will share the downtown building at Massachusetts and Cedar Street — known for its curved art deco overhang — with The Rec Room, an arcade bar set to open this spring.
Lkld Live, a 501c3 organization, is sustainable, Lkld Live Chairman Chuck McDanal said, but the vast majority of its revenue comes from the door and the bar, which has limited the scope of the operation. Fleming has big plans, but he is also charged with finding the donor base necessary to make them happen.
“My biggest focus is acquiring the proper funding,” Fleming said.
More information about events at Lkld Live can be found on its website at www.lkldlive.com and its Facebook page.
“I want Lkld Live to have an identity,” Fleming said.