Spirit Animal is Palm Springs’ newest contribution to the local events world.
After a number of different names in recent years, including Pretty Faces and Sirocco, the space at Hotel Zozo is now run by Adam Levy, of Take Five Entertainment. Take Five books jazz, comedy, blues and a variety of other regular show series at local casinos and venues, along with DJ nights, dinner shows and more. Levy plans on bringing his expertise to a venue with a unique aesthetic—including bright colors, a spinning rabbit logo and even a ball pit.
“I’ve managed clubs and programming in them when I was at Spotlight 29 Casino, and obviously I’ve been programming for six years now weekly—but this is the first time I’ve had the keys to anything,” he said.
Spirit Animal will celebrate its official “grand opening” at 7 p.m., Saturday, March 14, with “Comedian Rhapsody,” a dinner show hosted by comedian Avery Pearson. The event, “a high-energy, one-of-a-kind night where stand-up and live music collide in real time,” will feature Saturday Night Live’s Melissa Villaseñor, with special guest Scout Durwood.
Whether Levy is booking comedy at Spotlight 29, jazz at the Cascade Lounge at Agua Caliente Palm Springs, or family-friendly events in Desert Hot Springs, he said every step of his booking career has taught him more and more about how to survive in the desert as an events promoter.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is the math behind events and having shows,” he said. “Early on, you want to be as creative and fun as possible, but at the end of the day, you kind of learn the reality of the business of growing shows. That’s going to be key to surviving anywhere. Especially in this desert, it’s hard to get people to get out and do anything, so knowing the math behind shows is really important.”
Beyond the math, Levy said the best way to ensure longevity is by “playing nice in the sandbox.”
“What I mean by that is developing partnerships and relationships with other promoters who are like-minded, who are hungry, and who don’t have the same opportunity I have of owning a club,” he said. “Being able to foster those partnerships has been successful for me already. We have a lot of producing partners, some who are even more established than myself, like the Gand Band. Another great partner of mine is Sweet Baby J’ai, another local promoter. When you team up, you cast a wider net, and you’re able to expose your venue, your program, and just build more of a community.”
Take Five Entertainment has grown residency series like Desert Blues Revival and Carousel into beloved desert events thanks to this attitude.
“Honestly, where we’ve succeeded over the last six years is by building a community,” Levy said. “In every show that we have, in every program, we’re finding the right audience, and then building a community within it, listening to them, seeing and hearing what they want to see, and then just fostering it.”
Levy is hoping to learn lessons from the short-lived nature of other Coachella Valley music venues.
“With the jazz shows and the blues shows, there are certain times of the year when you just have to kind of hone it back, and instead of bringing in a 10-piece band, you bring in a trio. … If tickets aren’t selling, slash prices and just adjust on the fly.”
Adam Levy
“I’ve seen a lot of venues come and go,” he said. “I don’t think they did anything wrong, and I wouldn’t even say they were too ahead of their time. They were trying to and hoping to build something L.A. right off the bat. I think we’ll get there, but I think you also have to be really wise to the numbers financially, and know what you’re getting yourself into in order to be able to set yourself up for success.”
Levy’s plan for Spirit Animal is to offer a variety of event types.
“I’m viewing it as a venue, but I’m also viewing it as more than that,” he said. “I’m viewing it as a community space, and viewing it as a dinner-show space. Let’s look at the venues that have succeeded, like Palm Springs Underground and the Purple Room. (As) a music-centric venue, similar to what Mojave Gold and Pappy and Harriet’s are, or the Dune Room, I think we could be at that level, but also this place is set up for success in a way where dinner shows, and being right downtown, and capitalizing on the tourism, is much more at my fingertips.”
So many venues have come and gone that some desert musicians consider the scene to be cursed—described as “the low-desert fate.”
“I think you have to just be really aware of the reality of where you’re at, and knowing what’s in your toolbox,” Levy said. “Part of why some of these venues have failed is they may have seen other tools that weren’t in that toolbox. In the stock market, people always say, ‘Don’t hold and hope.’ You have to be real with what you have to work with, which is still scary. Things change so much. With the jazz shows and the blues shows, there are certain times of the year when you just have to kind of hone it back, and instead of bringing in a 10-piece band, you bring in a trio. Today, if you’re trying to sell tickets, you need to figure out what people want to see and work your database. If tickets aren’t selling, slash prices and just adjust on the fly. It really is a marathon.”
Levy said he plans to establish some flagship shows at Spirit Animal.
“For 10 years now, I’ve been trying to bring sketch comedy and improv to the desert, so we are going to be launching a drunk theater show, which is theatresports mixed with drunk Shakespeare, where every week, or twice a month, it’ll be a different theme,” Levy said. “The theme could be The Goonies, or Shakespeare, or romcoms, and it’ll have a different theme every time, a cast of actors, and every show be completely different. It’s all improv, so you’ll never see the same show twice. I have a burlesque show that’ll be here a minimum of once a month, if not more, and we’re partnering with Luna Negra (which hosts goth-themed nights) for elevated live bands—not just the DJ versions of Luna Negra. They’ve just been growing so much, and it’s going to be great to help with that.”
There will also be plenty of comedy!
“I met with Avery Pearson, who has a really successful show out of the Comedy Store, and he’s going to be doing something here,” Levy said. “I met with another producer who wants to do a standup comedy pole show, which is like a combination of pole dancing and comedy. … If I were to tell people where my mind is at, it’s Dynasty Typewriter or Largo in L.A., where it’s comedy, but it’s more fringe-centric. There will be sketch comedy, and another popular thing right now in L.A. is these live play readings, but with a panel of comics. Imagine having a nice dinner while watching comedians banter and having fun. … The sky’s the limit. We’ve talked about doing a flamenco show here with a paella dinner night. The room is so versatile, so we’ll definitely be doing a lot of theme dinners in addition to straight-up rock shows.”
Spirit Animal can be reconfigured to match the vibe and needs of different events.
“What’s neat about the way this room has been reconfigured is we’ve retrofitted the stage to be mobile, where we can move it either in the center of the room to do shows in the round, or we could have it traditional against the wall, where we’ve installed a video wall as a backdrop, so we could do immersive dining or have any kind of one-man productions with virtual sets,” Levy explained. “We could even break the stage apart to have a runway, so you could do a fashion show in here. For our burlesque shows, we could have multiple stages. We could even roll the stages out and have a roller skating night.”
Levy insisted that Spirit Animal is for the community, and urged local entertainers and promoters to reach out at hello@takefiveentertainment.com.
“If anyone is interested in throwing events here, we’d love to have you,” he said.
Spirit Animal is located at the Hotel Zoso, at 150 S. Indian Canyon Drive, in Palm Springs. For more information, visit www.instagram.com/spiritanimalclub, and get tickets via Eventbrite.