Well, we are right in the heart of Amish country here in Shipshewana and I'm so excited to be here at the Blue Gate Performing Arts Center.

I've never been in this place before.

Welcome.

Thank you so much.

And I mean, first, when you walk in, you are overwhelmed with all of the cool memorabilia this year.

Is this not cool?

It is amazing.

Yeah.

this and the crazy thing is that everything you see here, these are artists that have actually been in this building and performed here.

And it's just a it's a walk down memory lane.

You know, a lot of theaters, they they work hard to tell the story of what they are and where they've come from.

And that's really what we've tried to do here is tell the story of where the Blue Gate's been.

And, been a lot, a lot of places and been around for a while.

Yeah, almost 20 years.

Yeah.

So Riegsecker as a business, they started at Uptown as just a small store and expand into the restaurant.

And then they started doing entertainment in the mid 90s, and then here at the, at the Event Center in about 2006.

That's awesome.

And this is a brand new building.

I mean, relatively speaking.

Yeah.

These are only a few years old.

How has that process been?

It was amazing.

you know, building up to this point and then right around 2020, right around Covid, we did two performances in the new venue, and then we had to shut down Covid.

So it wasn't the greatest, timing for us.

But coming out of Covid, the response has been fantastic.

everybody that comes in the venue just raves about the the sound, about the seating.

And it's just it's a great place to go see a concert.

So before how many could you see and how many are you seating now?

Great question.

So when we first opened, our very first theater had 300 seats.

And so when we tried to do some bigger, bigger concerts, we didn't have enough space.

So we moved down to the event center, the flat floor here we got up to about a thousand people.

That was the max we could set, but it was flat and it was flat.

The guy in the back exactly sings so well on the front, right?

So when Ryan and Phil decided to go ahead and expand and do the new theater, they wanted to make sure that it had a little bit more seating and good seating.

And so we can now seat up to 1500 people.

And every seat has a great view.

Yeah, you get a good spot no matter what.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

And I mean, everything here has a story like you were saying.

What are some of your favorite stories?

You've been here a while.

Yeah.

I mean, seeing it come all the way through from our very, one of our very first concerts with Mark Lowry and Tony Campolo all the way through, like just last week.

And we had Celtic Woman here, and we've got Gladys Knight coming in next week, and just some of the names are just fantastic.

Some of my favorites are, you know, I grew up listening to Michael W. Smith.

last year we got one of the big Christmas names, Mannheim Steamroller.

That was a huge wow for us.

I wasn't sure we could fit him on the stage, but it went great.

It was a fantastic show.

Is really thrilled to have him here.

How are the artists receiving the space?

They love it.

You know, a lot of the times that's one of the best comments we get back is the artists feel like our hospitality is really what brings them back.

The second time, the food, we feed them well here, this is Amish country, so we feed them really well.

And the hospitality our staff goes over and above to try to make sure that they feel welcome in, you know, not just that for the artists, but for those who come here.

Yeah, it is really an experience to come down to ship.

Shipshewana Absolutely.

When you come to Shipshewana, it's never just for a concert.

You're coming for the full experience.

So, we encourage people to come have a bite to eat at the Blue Gate.

And if you got time, go ahead and stay, stay, stay the night in the hotel.

You're going to enjoy that.

It's right next door so you don't have to drive.

Just go to the concert and then walk back to your hotel.

You guys have ample parking too?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And it's all free.

You don't have to go pay for it in downtown Chicago.

Yeah, absolutely.

You and other concert venues, it is a bonus that you don't have to pay for parking.

Absolutely.

Everything is pretty reasonably priced here too.

Yes.

Tickets, people, no ships you want to for value.

And that's really what we provide them.

You can do a concert, a meal in a hotel for way, way more value than you can do it almost anywhere else in the.

Yeah, especially some of the big cities that are nearby.

That's fantastic.

Talk about some of the memorabilia here.

There's a lot of guitars.

Yeah, which I love.

And they've been played here as well.

They've all been signed by the actual artists that performed here.

And like our owner Ryan loves this sort of stuff and he comes up with really unique ideas.

And so what we like, some of these have actual like lyrics on them.

And then we have actually there's a really talented local high school artist that he had do some hand drawings and then the artist signs them.

So those are really unique.

And then we in the marketing department, we'll do lyric posters that they'll sign.

And, obviously we get the standard, photos of the artist as well.

And there's lots of sold out tickets, too.

We love putting those on the wall.

So whenever we have a good sold out show, we'll we'll do a big sold out ticket and have the artists.

I love it.

Yeah.

And you guys have some sold out shows already coming up for this year.

It's a big year for you guys.

Lots of great stuff.

You wanna talk about that?

Absolutely.

We'll have over 20 sold out shows already this year.

So we went okay, now let's go back.

How many shows do you have this year?

So in this venue we'll do about 150 shows.

The big shows.

Yeah it is amazing.

And then overall with the small theater uptown, we'll do over 450 shows and events this year.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

See you're working around the clock.

Absolutely.

Well, the main thing is when you come to ship show, there's always something to do.

I love you can plan ahead and find out what there is to do, but there's always going to be something for when you want to come have a good time.

And and even weekdays too.

It's not just on the weekend.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Musicals, tributes and of course you can do the famous, famous, flea market in town, do the great shopping.

It's a lot of fun.

And you guys have more than just musical artists?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Comedians.

If you like to laugh, we've got some great comedians, Henry Cho, John Crist, and of course, we've had some huge names that will get back, you know, Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and some fun family type stuff.

we were talking about Mutts Gone Nuts earlier.

Yes, we're on AGT America's Got Talent before.

Absolutely.

And a lot of we've got some other, great families type stuff comes up right around Christmas time.

When you're home for Christmas break.

We'll have a lot more family stuff around then, too.

Awesome.

Now I know we're airing on Thursday night, so yes, Gladys Knight is happening right now.

So if you're not already at this concert, you're here with us right now.

Yeah.

What are some of the other big names coming in this year?

Well, Gladys is a huge one for us.

She's like one of those, hallmark names that if you've had Gladys, you've had legend, right?

Yeah.

we've also had Willie Nelson, we've had Kenny Rogers, Kenny G, Loretta Lynn, the Oak Ridge boys are doing their farewell tour this year.

They're doing two shows here, so we've been honored by it to have some truly incredible names here on the Blue Gate stage.

And I have to say, you know, there's a draw for artists like that to come here.

Absolutely.

Yeah, they love it.

We, again, they just like to have a good time.

And that's really how we find we get the bigger artists is we have one, they have a good time and they tell their friends down, down in Nashville.

And that's what we're going to do.

We're going to be telling our friends, awesome, all about this space too, how can people get tickets?

Where do they get the line up?

Yeah, super easy Google or just go to Blue Gate, the Blue Gate ecom blue gate dot the blue gate.com.

Super easy.

And there's so much to see in here.

I mean, you could also spend, How soon do you open before we start seating?

Because there's plenty things to see and do.

Absolutely.

Doors open an hour before the show time, so you kind of want lots of time.

And we encourage people to walk around and take it.

Take a look.

lots of fun things to see.

That's amazing.

All right.

Well, thank you so much.

Thank you.

A little bit of what you guys have to offer.

And we're going to get you back for a concert.

Yes.

All right.

Good.

I love it.

Although, you know, Donny Osmond already sold out.

Oh, sorry about that.

Yeah.

Oh, man