Live Nation to Operate Pennsylvania's New Venue Archer Music Hall

Entertainment giant Live Nation will operate a new music venue, heading to Allentown, Pennsylvania next year.

The 31,000-square-foot two-level venue, dubbed Archer Music Hall, is slated to open in February at 935-939 Hamilton St. Over 200 new, permanent jobs will be created for the venue, with base rate pay starting at $20 per hour. The Archer is set to hold 1,600 guests at its main performance space, as well as 500 at Arrow, another smaller space inside the venue. Live Nation described Arrow as “an intimate club within the club” that will feature up-and-coming artists as well as local acts.

J.B. Reilly, president of City Center Group — which is building the venue — noted in a statement that Archer Music Hall “will be a world-class venue, unlike anything in the region.”

“The Archer will play a significant role in downtown Allentown’s vibrancy, economy, and prominence, and Live Nation is the perfect group to help re-energize the Downtown West neighborhood,” Reilly said.

Live Nation expects the venue to hold more than 200 shows per year, with goals to bring “an incredible amount of foot traffic to the neighborhood.” It was designed to attract events that are too small to hold at the PPL Center, which has a capacity of around 10,000.

This is the latest move by Live Nation in the entertainment space; earlier this month, Live Nation revealed it acquired The Paramount, a 1,555-capacity venue in downtown Huntington, New York, as well as a new, seasonal, open-air concert venue — heading to Toronto, Ontario in 2025. The venue, dubbed Rogers Stadium, was met with criticism from locals.

Every time Live Nation announces a new venue, concertgoers are quick to share their dismay, citing the entertainment giant’s monopolistic practices. Portland, Oregon — one of the last larger cities in the U.S. that doesn’t have a venue owned by Live Nation — saw complaints from music fans across the city that the conglomerate would ruin Portland’s vibrant indie music scene. Fans also lashed out at the National Capital Commission after announcing it signed an offer to lease an agreement with Live Nation Canada to operate a new live music venue in downtown Ottawa.

A similar situation ensued when Live Nation quietly bought Brooklyn’s Bell House and after news broke that Live Nation would be involved in the return of Vans Warped Tour next year.

The entertainment giant is the subject of an antitrust lawsuit alongside its ticketing subsidiary by the Department of Justice and 39 states, as well as the District of Columbia. The suit aims to break-up the pair, citing anti-competitive practices.