Chicago’s Next Great Act
In a city where every room makes music, this one is built for nothing else.
Music Runs Through Chicago
From basement shows to theaters to the arena the Bulls and Blackhawks call home, Chicago’s stages and its crowds are why artists circle the date.
“We aren’t trying to build a smaller arena. We’re creating a venue around what makes live music powerful in the first place, the connection between an artist and their fans. Every decision, from the room itself to what happens backstage and outside its doors, is being made with that experience in mind.”
Serving The Connection
The fans are why it’s here, and the artists are why they come. The sound, the sightlines, the stage and the way a crowd moves through the room all serve what happens between them.
“The musical history of this address is not incidental to what we’re building – it’s the reason we believe a room like this belongs here, and nowhere else.”
History Is Made At 1901
Chicago Stadium · 1929 to 1994
Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald take the Stadium stage.
The Rolling Stones and The Who both come through.
Led Zeppelin plays four nights. Elvis comes through in his last year on the road.
Queen begins two years of Stadium shows.
Pearl Jam plays the Stadium’s last concert.
United Center · 1994 to today
Billy Joel opens the building.
Every major tour to come through Chicago for 30 years, from the Rolling Stones to Springsteen to U2 to McCartney.
The Bulls and Blackhawks have won twelve championships between them, and six were clinched at home on this address: the Blackhawks’ Cups in 1934, 1938 and 2015, and the Bulls’ titles in 1992, 1996 and 1997.
“Music has an extraordinary ability to bring people together. This venue gives us another way to connect the United Center campus with the West Side, with Chicago and with the millions of people from all parts of the world who come to Chicago to experience something together.”
Built From Both Sides Of The Stage
Between them, the Wirtz and Reinsdorf families have worked this address from the loading dock to the owner’s box. They run two of sports’ great franchises: the Bulls, with six titles, and the Blackhawks, an Original Six club with six Stanley Cups and the NHL’s attendance leader for more than a decade. The team behind a 20,000-seat arena has been in every design decision, from the load-in to the last row.
A Generational Build
Ferdinand Peck wanted a theater to rival anything in New York. He hired Adler and Sullivan, and they designed the architecture and the acoustics as one thing. It opened in 1889 as the Auditorium. Frank Lloyd Wright, who drafted on it, called it the greatest room for music and opera in the world. It’s a National Historic Landmark.
Every room was something else first. The Chicago Theatre was a movie palace. The Aragon was a ballroom. Metro was a Swedish community hall. The Salt Shed held salt. Chicago Stadium was built for sports.
The last theater this size built from the ground up here was Arie Crown, at McCormick Place in 1961.
Nearly seventy years later, this is the room Chicago’s lineup is missing. For one night or a run of them, with the United Center next door for the nights that call for 20,000.
“The 6K cap is the one that artists, agents, managers, promoters are all kind of seeing as missing in a lot of markets, but specifically Chicago.”
No Such Thing As An Impossible Show
Seated, standing or both, up to 6,000. Acoustics come first, designed by Kirkegaard. Three levels, floor, mezzanine and balcony, with a clear line to the stage from every one, and lighting that moves with the show. Artists are curious. The room is built to bring their ideas to life, and to put every fan in front of them.
Tuned To The Last Detail
RIOS
Master planner of the entire 1901 Project and architect of Phase One. In Los Angeles, more than a decade of work with the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl, and a major renovation of the Mark Taper Forum.
Kirkegaard
Chicago’s own acousticians. Their rooms include London’s Royal Festival Hall, San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall and Tanglewood.
Theatre Projects
Founded in London in 1957. More than 1,500 projects in over 80 countries, including Dallas’s Wyly Theatre and Singapore’s Esplanade.
From The First Drink To The Last Note
Bars on both levels and two on the floor, wide walkways and merch in three spots. Everything around the music is there when you want it and out of the way when you don’t.
Make Yourself At Home
From the moment an artist arrives to the curtain call, the compound carries the venue’s history and personality. Every artist is a guest, never the talent, and when artists are looked after, fans feel it from the first song.
Built To Evolve With Music
Music, by definition, is change. As artists push what a show can be, the room changes with them. It’s run by people who’ve spent their lives doing exactly this, inside the same organization as its next-door neighbor, the United Center.
The Artist Sets The Stage
Every decision at the Music Hall gives artists space to explore, and gives fans a night they can only have here.
Known Artists, Shows Never Seen
Artists arrive with an idea, and the room is built to say yes to it.
A run of nights. A record played front to back. Seated one night, standing the next. Production that changes between shows. A stage that holds whatever someone wants to put on it, and sound that doesn’t argue with any of it.
We don’t know what those shows are yet or what vision an artist has that we’ll bring to life. We built the room so they’re possible.
Examples of range. Actual acts have not yet been announced.
Something’s Always On
Tours come and go, but the neighborhood is where this lives. Two restaurants at the front door serve anyone, seven days a week, and 80,000 square feet of retail across the Music Hall and two neighboring buildings will fill over time with a curated mix of Chicago shops and places to gather, woven into the fabric of the West Side.
Amplifying The West Side
The Music Hall is the start. The Wirtz and Reinsdorf families’ plan turns more than 55 acres of parking around the United Center into a neighborhood to live, work and gather in over the next 15 years. It starts with music and culture, and everything else grows from there.
A Neighborhood, Built From The Ground Up
About $500 million across 12.3 acres: the Music Hall, a 187-key hotel, restaurants, shops and new open space, next to the 20,917-seat United Center.
Homes, offices, more hotels and parks, built where the parking lots are today.
Shows Start Spring 2028
Groundbreaking
Booking Begins
The Interior Takes Form
Construction Complete
Showtime
Chicago’s Next Great Act
Partners, Not Sponsors.
Partners here believe in what happens in the room, and they’re here to make every night better for the people in it.
Part Of The Show
The best partners go beyond an activation or a sign. They build with the Music Hall team to create, innovate, surprise and elevate the night for artists and fans alike.
The building is still being built, and some of what goes in it hasn’t been decided yet. That’s the opening.
A partner can present a series or a residency. Put their name on something the programming team makes rather than something they rented. Some of the best partnerships in music have been physical: a brewery built into a stadium, a network wired in during construction, a studio where artists record for free. Those happened because somebody asked early, while the walls were open.
The only thing we care about is whether it makes the night better for the people in the room.
Built Together
The biggest ideas start with both of us in the room. A series, a space or a signature moment, developed with the Music Hall team from day one, that only exists because we made it together.
Program Presentation
Present residencies, event series and opening week, alongside the programming team.
Product Integration
As owner and operator, the venue can build partners into its service and operations, from food and beverage to speakers and microphones to furnishings and fixtures.
Marketing And Promotions
The rights to promote an affiliation with the venue, create exclusive offers or present a program series.
Experiential
The terrace, the South Commons and the concourse, where guests already gather.
Retail
First-floor space across the Music Hall and two adjacent buildings, open to local groups and national brands alike.
Advertising
Out-of-home, in-venue and online, across the hall and the campus around it.
A Blank Canvas
A first-floor studio, built with a partner and open to the street, made for one-offs: a session, a launch, a performance that happens once and only here, next door to both stages.
The Room Nobody Sees
Every artist who plays here passes through.
A partner here isn’t buying impressions. They are in the room with the people who make the music, on the day they make it, for as long as this building stands. There is no media equivalent and no way to buy it twice.
Every artist is a guest, never the talent. A partner who helps make that true is remembered by the only audience that can bring a tour back.
The Best Seats In The House
Twenty Premium Theater Boxes, each for four. A Premium Club that any ticket can upgrade into, held to the club’s capacity. An outdoor terrace facing the United Center. Each one is built around a better view of the show and a better place to spend the night around it.
The Owner’s Boxes
Two suites for 12 to 20 guests, with direct access to the Premium Club.
Private Events, Every Shape And Size
The whole theater for a company night, the Premium Club for a launch, the terrace for a summer party, the concourse for a reception, with the hotel next door for guests and a partnership team that builds each one around your goals.
A Place To Play
The room is the instrument. You tune it.
We’ve Got It From Load-In
“We can build the new journey for the semi that has to load in, or the tour bus, or the guest walking through the door.”
Easy load-ins, top-tier production and a compound that’s yours from arrival to curtain. The 187-key hotel steps away is there for your comfort and your curiosity, so Chicago feels like somewhere to stick around after the show.
The People Who Shaped Chicago’s Music Scene
More Than 30 Years Booking Chicago
Combined, across some of the city’s most influential rooms and promoters.
From Roadie To Owner
Touring crews, then years in music marketing, then the venue itself.
Taste That Shaped A Generation
Years spent helping people find the music that would matter to them most.
Three Decades At The United Center
Running the largest arena in the NBA, home of the Bulls and the Blackhawks, and the shows that have played it.
“We’re building a room that can serve artists at different points in their careers, give them reasons to come back to Chicago and, most importantly, create the kind of connection between artist and audience that makes a show memorable.”
Chicago’s next great act.
It’s almost Showtime.
Westside Music Hall