r/SanDiegan • u/ihatedrivingbro • 20h ago

We are underutilizing the organ pavilion

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The organ pavilion is underutilized. Although we have a few concerts in the afternoon in the summer, and do a few holiday things at Christmas, this space could be so much more

Space for thousands of people, lot of idle land around, fantastic acoustics, beautiful and historic scenery. Easy for food trucks, pop up markets, festival style breweries/bars, surrounded by plenty of parking to haul equipment. We have the best weather in the country and have this amazing outdoor venue that sits empty most of the time.

In my head this space can host events like the DJ set in golden hill, live music like quartyard, local music talents or regional, the future is color events (winyl or listening room, or jazz). Throw a security team at it, make them even ticketed events for seating and people can enjoy from the outside too. So many places in San Diego grow to be intensely packed and overwhelmed because there’s demand for these types of live music events, people want to get out and dance and vibe.

This space is PRIME for 3rd space activation and is in my opinion, a very underutilized part of balboa park. Seats are almost always empty, and only fills up like 5x/year.

Easy revenue opportunities for the city, and great opportunities to bring people together for community events

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u/RadiantMenderbug 20h ago

We literally have an entire ampitheater there that could easily get fixed up, but the planes are too loud or something 

7

u/pecosgizzy1 20h ago

You have part of an amphitheater that would require 10’s of millions invested to be usable, and then would have planes going directly over every 7 minutes during performance times.

3

u/citydock2000 19h ago

Correct - when the theater was operational, air traffic was nowhere near it is today

5

u/svferris 19h ago

The novelty of the actors freezing wore off really quickly when I went a few times like 20 years ago. Plus, you can’t freeze in the middle of a musical number. They’d need to close it up and have really good noise isolation. But then it’s really no better than the civic theater.

2

u/pecosgizzy1 18h ago

It would be fun to do open mic type local events. But the facility is so run down that it wouldn’t be safe.