Features
Great Salt Air To Reopen
Three promoters have teamed up to restore Magna, Utah’s 3,500-capacity Great Salt Air to its “former glory.” The venue will reopen under new ownership September 28th with a concert by Scotland’s
The new ownership, Salt Air LLC, is a collaboration between Salt Lake City promoters The Kollective and Suede, and Arizona-based Lucky Man Productions. All three will book, promote and manage the facility.
“I am extremely excited to be involved with these two great independent promoters in continuing to bring great music to the Salt Lake City area,” Suede’s Tara Cinelli told Pollstar.
The new partners have secured a long-term lease on the venue and anticipate 50-plus events per year. Those will include national touring acts, sporting events, car shows, swap meets and other various community events including local music shows, according to Lucky Man’s Tom LaPenna.
“We’re really trying to make it a community venue not just for concerts,” LaPenna told Pollstar. “Hopefully, it will embrace the local music community a little more.”
Along with renovations, LaPenna said there are plans to install a curtain system to cut the venue capacity down to 1,500.
“I see this as a venue that can really be the crown jewel of Salt Lake City because it encompasses the only open-air ballroom configuration at this capacity within the area,” he said.
After the original Great Salt Air closed around fall 2003, staffers at Kollective felt there was a void in the Salt Lake marketplace. The company later discovered the building’s former owner was enthused by the opportunity to rid himself of the property, LaPenna explained.
Kollective’s Corey Adams believes the venue creates an opportunity to help boost a market that has been underdeveloped.
In the next year or two, LaPenna said there are plans to extend the venue – which sits a half-mile behind the actual Great Salt Lake – to a surrounding beach that is owned under the long-term lease.
The soon-to-open facility has dates booked into November including
— Mitchell Peters