Potawatomi Casino Building Outdoor Concert Venue
Snoop Dogg will play opening show. RNC, Harley shows also planned.
1901-1915 W. Canal St. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.1901-1915 W. Canal St. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Potawatomi Casino Hotel is moving ahead with its plans to build a temporary outdoor concert venue.
The venue, with a capacity of 4,800, will be located on a gravel lot immediately west of the casino, 1721 W. Canal St. At least three shows are planned this summer.
Rapper Snoop Dogg will headline the first show, scheduled for June 15. Additional shows, with acts to be announced, are planned for July and August.
The announcement comes as the casino is also rumored to be pursuing an indoor concert venue as a permanent replacement to the smaller Northern Lights Theater, which was redeveloped as a 6,500-square-foot sportsbook. The sportsbook, a massive venue for watching televised sports, opened last Friday.
“Everything we are doing is continuing to change the game and put us in a position of leadership atop the mountain. That’s where we want to be when the competition comes,” said Potawatomi Hotel Casino CEO Dominic Ortiz in an interview last week. “You will have the first ever all-inclusive experience, it will be outdoors, in the hotel, in the casino, park, go to your room, dine, gamble, get ready for the show, get cleaned up, party, enjoy a great show, come back down and gamble again, go to your hotel room and crash. There’s no experience like that in the city right now.”
A Wednesday press release from the casino says there will be a variety of seat options, including “40 picnic tables and two double-decker VIP tents.” Food and beer trucks will provide dining and drinking options, with drink wristbands available for purchase.
The casino is referring to the venue as “Potawatomi Amplified.”
The venue property, 1901-1915 W. Canal St., was the site of a Cargill meat processing plant until acquired by Potawatomi in 2015. City assessment records indicate the Forest County Potawatomi Community paid $6.3 million for the 279,655-square-foot property. The building on the site was razed in 2019.
Potawatomi began applying for building permits in April to construct the stage. Notes on the permits requests indicate two different July show windows, a one-day event is to be held July 18, the last night of the Republican National Convention. A three-day show is to be held July 26-28, overlapping with the Harley-Davidson Homecoming event. The final request permit is for Aug. 22.
Tickets for the Snoop Dogg concert go on sale Friday at noon on Potawatomi’s website, PaysBig.com.
Gilbane Building Co. is listed as the permit applicant. The organization recently helped Potawatomi build the sports book and earlier led the construction of the 500-room hotel.
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PLEASE TELL US THE J-6 SINGERS WILL BE PERFORMING (in orange jumpsuits, of course) AT THE RNC!!!