- The Carleton Patreon -

We opened The Carleton Music Bar & Grill in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in the spring of 2008 - just ahead of the world-wide economic meltdown later that year - but have still managed to navigate our way through the treacherous times since, providing the best stage in this part of Canada and winning lots of awards for awesomeness (6 Music Nova Scotia Awards and 3 East Coast Music Awards for Venue of the Year) while doing it. No one was getting rich but we've managed to keep the doors open.





The Carleton is also the nexus of our annual Halifax Urban Folk Festival, an event that pairs international headliners with local musicians to create live collaborations unseen anywhere else in the world.


In January last year, construction started in earnest on the Nova Centre (the new world trade and convention building, as well as two office towers and a hotel) and that project - directly across the street from us - has eliminated most of the parking spaces in our part of downtown, made a mess of traffic in general with street closures and delays of all sorts, created dirt, dust and noise and has resulted in a catastrophic drop in business as a direct result.





There is little doubt that once the project is complete, it will be a boon to the downtown but, as it sits, there might not be any local businesses left by the time that happens. Our club is one of the few live music venues left in the city and artists from all over the world count on us to provide not just a stage but an overall performance environment that is unique. We're a small room - 115 capacity for seated, "listening room" events (about 140 for rock stuff) - and the intimacy of a show there is extraordinary. That's how, and why, we get the level of talent we do. We're an important place and our survival is vital to the health of the whole live music culture in Atlantic Canada. If artists don't have a decent room to play in Halifax, they will stop coming east of Montreal.


The projected date of completion for the Nova Centre (the largest construction project in the history of the province of Nova Scotia) is now September, 2016 (it was January, 2016) and we're going to need help between now and then to weather this storm.