Boise’s favorite music festival is set to open its first venue where concertgoers can experience it year round.
With Boise’s rapidly expanding music scene, Treefort Music Festival is creating a new venue for both the local community as well as touring artists to enjoy. Treefort Music Hall will be open all year to the public and will continue to provide what the festival caters like live music and a place to hang out and connect with friends.
The music hall is expected to open in the fall of 2022 with promises of live music, a rooftop patio and space where the citizens of Boise can go to have a fun time.
The music hall will add to Boise’s music scene, joining other venues like the Knitting Factory, Ford Center Idaho Amphitheater, Revolution Concert House and Event Center and The Olympic Venue.
During the pandemic, co-founder and CEO of Treefort and Duck Club, Eric Gilbert, found time to sit down and construct a plan for a venue for Boise’s beloved festival.
Photo courtesy of Matthew Wordell
Gilbert and his teammates always planned to build a venue at some point, it was just a matter of when and how.
“We really wanted to build a space to fill a gap that’s not already existing in the venue ecosystem,” Gilbert said. “It’ll give Treefort a year-round presence where artists — local or not — can come to perform.”
The old Office Depot, located on the corner of Capitol Boulevard and Broad Street, is set to be the new music hall’s home. The venue will incorporate a bar space, both standing and seating areas, as well as a stage for artists to perform on.
“The biggest thing we’re really excited about is the audiovisual capabilities that we’re going to build into the space,” Gilbert said. “We’re working with people that helped build historic venues like the 930 Club in D.C. and the Union Transfer in Philadelphia. We’re trying to distill a lot of knowledge from around the country and build a space with state-of-the-art audio and visual capabilities.”
Gilbert is also looking forward to giving Boise a space that will help contribute to the ever-changing culture of both the city and the people.
“I think there’s a lot of tours that skip Boise because there’s not enough venue options here for them in the right sizes,” Gilbert said. “Our hope is that more tours in that 700-1000 cap range stop here and want to come here.”
With Treefort 10 just around the corner, Gilbert and his team are excited to continue spreading the word and getting people excited for what is to come. It is Gilbert’s hope that by building this music hall that both the festival and Boise community will benefit and flourish.
“Treefort and Duck Club has been developing here and encouraging artists of different styles, work and more experimental genres to come to town. Our thinking is that we can further develop that market for a much wider swath of genre representation in town by offering this new space,” Gilbert said.
The music hall is currently in phase one of construction and is set to be finished in fall of 2022.
Treefort 10 will take place March 23-27.
