‘All good things have to come to an end’: Garrick Centre closes

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This article was published 29/06/2017 (3261 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of Winnipeg’s beloved concert venues — the Garrick Centre — is being shuttered.

“Goodbye Winnipeg… After many years and countless amazing shows, we have sadly come to an end,” reads a post on the downtown performance space’s website, shared to Twitter Thursday afternoon. “Thank you to so much of our incredibly loyal and amazing fans. You have made every event of ours that much better.”

The news quickly made the rounds on social media, and music lovers and fans of the longtime venue at 330 Garry St. made their displeasure known.

“RIP (rest in peace) to my favourite place to be as a teen!” wrote one person on Facebook. “So many good memories there.”

“Moving cities,” wrote another, “there are no good venues left.”

Jody, a bartender at the Garrick Centre for the last decade who asked the Free Press not use her last name, spoke fondly of what she called a “really awesome venue.”

She has fond memories of hearing bands playing the Garrick before making it big, including — notably — Metric.

“It has a lot of good bands,” she said. “It holds a lot of people, the sound is awesome. Most of the people that have worked there have worked there for a long time, kind of like a little community.”

The concert hall has been around for a long time, Jody said, but “all good things have to come to an end, I guess.”

The Garrick is the latest in a string of performance spaces that have closed in the last several years.

The Royal Albert Arms Hotel — one Winnipeg’s most beloved music venues for decades — shut down in 2011. It briefly opened again as a venue and eatery, but quickly fizzled out.

The Lo Pub, a downtown bar and music venue on Kennedy Street, abruptly closed in 2012, much to the dismay of local musicians and fans.

In 2015, the sale of the Osborne Village Motor Inn forced its pair of venues, The Zoo and Ozzy’s, to go silent.

The Garrick Centre used to be the Garrick Cinema and has a history dating to 1921, according to the blog Winnipeg Downtown Places.

It was, in its early years, the Garrick Cinema’s flagship theatre, holding 1,500 people at maximum capacity for both movies, as well as live theatre. It was an impressive building with a fireplace in the lobby and marble flooring.

The property changed hands several times over the decades, the building modernizing as it went. In 1968, it opened as the city’s first multiplex, boasting two movie theatres.

At the turn of the century, it began to take shape as one of the city’s beloved concert venues.

Now, according to the online post Thursday: “The venue itself is changing management, so its future is unknown.”

But, the note reads: “In the spirit of the Garrick, only time will tell what might happen.”

Jody says she doesn’t know what’s to come, but the staff are “all very hopeful” there will be some way for the Garrick to live on.

Calls to the Garrick Centre were not returned Thursday evening, neither was a Facebook message to the facility. Many of the website’s pages now return as “Page not found.”

According to the public goodbye, information on shows previously scheduled for the Garrick will be available on Ticketmaster’s website.

“Thank you for your continued love and support Winnipeg,” the note ends, “we loved every moment of it.”