Dormont concert promotion enterprise arises from pandemic
During the longest, most isolated days of pandemic social distancing, some people binged on television series, read some of the books that had long been sitting on their shelves, or learned how to bake bread.
Dormont residents Amy Kline and Stefan Flower launched a concert promotion company.
And it’s not something they sat down and drew up at their kitchen table. Instead, it grew up from two years worth of concerts they put on in the backyard of their Hillsdale Avenue residence. Of the 10 shows, which featured local and regional acts, a couple drew more than 100 people.
The response made Kline and Flower think that it was, in her words, “time to go bigger.”
So they have formed the Parking Pad, a concert promotion enterprise that they hope will bring jam bands, bluegrass, jazz and a variety of other types of music to the South Hills. Branching out from their backyard, they presented a concert in February at Dormont’s VFW post, and earlier this month at Hollywood Theater in the borough. This summer, they will have concerts at Hillsdale Park in a partnership with the Dormont Community Development Corp., Gold Mountain Music and Pittsburgh’s Back Alley Brewing Co.
Kline has previously worked at Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, the jazz venue on Pittsburgh’s North Side, so she understood some of the ins-and-outs of ticketing and concert promotion.
“I missed doing shows, and we all missed shows during COVID,” she said. “We started it just to have some fun.”
That being the case, they are obviously not looking to become the next Live Nation, the concert behemoth that has a hammerlock on a large share of the American concert industry.
“It’s definitely a labor of love,” Kline said. “It started as ‘let’s have some friends at our shows,’ and that’s the vibe we have.”
The next Parking Pad show will be a house concert with the Pittsburgh band Koz on Saturday, April 29. Other concerts scheduled are:
n The Matt Tichon Band and Craig Veltri, Saturday, May 6, Hillsdale Park
n Shelf Life String Band, Saturday, June 3, house venue
n Essential Machine, Noah Goisse, Saturday, June 10, Hillsdale Park
n Barnacle Feet, Orion, Saturday, July 15, Hillsdale Park
n Dirty Old Mill, Saturday, July 22, house venue
n Shelly Duff and another artist to be determined, Saturday, Aug. 12, Hillsdale Park
n Koz, Brandon Payne, Saturday, Sept. 9, Hillsdale Park
n Reuben’s Painted Mandolin, JGBG, Saturday, Sept. 30, Hollywood Theater
n Brahctopus, Paging Doctor Moon, Saturday, Nov. 18, Hollywood Theater
Additional information is available at eventbrite.com.