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The original WOW-A-Thon in 1975 raised the money needed to save the historic building from demolition. A second, WOW-A-Thon II, has been planned to celebrate the half-century of music and community since.
Sometimes, Ed Kashin walks into the WOW Hall when no one else is around.
The historic building at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Lincoln Street is very quiet when Kashin does this.
There’s an ambiance the hall has absorbed from its long history, he said: decades of music and live events, the social dances, the 1975 fundraising marathon music festival that saved the historic building from demolition (he was there, throwing money in the front), and even before, when it was the Woodmen of the World’s fraternal lodge.
“You can hear the voices and the music from day one,” said Kashin, now 71 and the board chair of the nonprofit organization that runs the venue.
Now, 50 years on, WOW-A-Thon returns. But WOW-A-Thon II, which starts on Friday, Dec. 5, is not a dire-straits fundraiser.
It’s a celebration of the music and community events that have happened since 1975: the punk shows, an early appearance in 2018 by a now-supernova pop star (Chappell Roan, if you’re curious), the civic meetings, generations of volunteer orientations, and hundreds of nights with concertgoers grooving atop a dance floor, designed to “float” with the crowd.
“We wanted to harken back to that time in our history,” said Patrick Hosfield, the executive director of WOW Hall. “To say, ‘Look, there was that spirit in Eugene 50 years ago, and that spirit still exists in Eugene today.’”
From Woodmen of the World to WOW Hall
The hall was built in 1932 as the new lodge hall for the Eugene chapter of the Woodmen of the World, according to the building’s registration for the National Register of Historic Places. The fraternal benefit group, which had been operating in a former church space, provided free medical care for unemployed timber workers during the Great Depression and hosted civic events and social dances in the hall.
Live entertainment was part of the building’s lifeblood since its earliest days. The registration paperwork notes a neon sign reading “Dance Tonite” that was likely installed in the mid-1930s.
In 1975, the volunteer group Community Center for the Performing Arts held a nonstop five-day festival to raise money for the down payment to buy the building. Three years later, the group paid off the full mortgage to own the building outright.
Except for improvements to heating and cooling and the installation of historic lamp posts outside, the building is largely the same as it was when it was initially built. (Changes to the building have to be up to standards for historical restoration, or the building could lose its status on the National Register of Historic Places.)
That means working with quirkier details from the building’s legacy as a fraternal lodge, like its built-in wooden pews ringing the main hall or its side entrance, originally the women’s entrance.
The hall’s most striking feature is its original “floating” maple dance floor. It bounces with the crowd, thanks to a trick of design. The floor’s substructure is supported independently from the surrounding concrete walls, so its components are sized with enough space to create a slight bounce as someone moves or dances on it.
It’s one of three in the state of Oregon. (If you’ve been to Portland’s Crystal Ballroom, you’ve danced on one of the other two.)
Kurt Liedtke, marketing coordinator for the hall, grew up in Eugene and has been to plenty of shows at the venue. He said that when there’s a particularly rowdy show, like the recent tour stop for Japanese noise rock band Melt-Banana, the walls have their own vibration.
“It’s almost like the building’s alive,” he said.
All genres, all ages, all welcome
David Ferris started going to the WOW Hall after he moved from Seattle to Eugene in 2001. He’s been to plenty of shows, across genres: a concert from the Dimmer Twins (of later Drive-By Truckers fame), hardcore punk like Authority Zero and Voodoo Glow Skulls, blues, and Grateful Dead-inspired music fitting for a Deadhead like him.
Now the hall’s membership coordinator, he retired from his career as a chef around the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and started volunteering as the hall reopened.
Critical to WOW Hall’s identity in Eugene, Hosfield and Ferris said, is its status as an all-age space. Ferris also runs the concession stand. He has a front-row view to a multi-generational audience of children running around during punk shows and, on multiple occasions, three generations of one family coming to a concert together.
Hundreds of volunteers sustain the hall’s existence, a mix of devoted Deadheads and newer people. “We’ve got some young volunteers that are every bit as dedicated to this place as the old timers that have been here for 50 years,” Ferris said.
Commitment over time to the hall extends to musicians who come through for shows, year after year. Ferris pointed also to indie rock band Built to Spill’s stop at the hall in November.
“They could be playing the McDonald Theatre,” Ferris said. “They play here every time they come through town. You know why? Because the leader of that band, Doug, loves the WOW Hall.”
The next 50 years
WOW-A-Thon II isn’t a do-or-die situation like in 1975. But Hosfield said he’s assessing what a long-term capital plan would look like to make further improvements to the building. Ticket prices are purposefully kept low. That means fundraisers like WOW-A-Thon II and philanthropic support are key to those next steps.
Plans for the next 50 years go beyond the venue itself, to how Eugene perceives it. Hosfield said he wants it to go beyond its reputation as a great venue for rock and punk. That looks like adding more comedy, more theater, more jazz and choir acts, and civic events beyond concerts.
Hosfield started his career in arts administration in Carnegie Hall and said he sees WOW Hall as Eugene’s equivalent to the storied venue. Both are centers for arts of all kinds, saved from destruction by people who wanted to keep the buildings alive.
The key difference between the two institutions is fitting for Eugene.
“Carnegie Hall was built by one really rich guy,” Hosfield said. “The WOW Hall was built by a community, and it was saved by a community, and it’s still run as a community.”
If you go: WOW-A-Thon II
WOW-A-Thon II will run for two days this weekend. The lineup includes guitarist Shelley Doty of the jam band Jambay, a performance from musicians and family members Wren, Juniper and Jans Ingber, a local hip-hop reunion with The Architex and Prim8s, a dance performance from the Fermata Ballet Collective, and more.
The full lineup and schedule is available on the WOW Hall’s event listing for the festival.
The event will also include raffle prizes, video testimonials from musicians speaking about their time in the hall, rock music trivia and a Voices of the Hall collaborative storytelling hour, where people can share their memories of WOW Hall.
- When: Friday, Dec. 5, and Saturday, Dec. 6. Doors open each day at 4 p.m. The show goes from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. both days.
- Where: WOW Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave., Eugene
- How much: A single day’s attendance is $15, and a two-day pass is $25. Tickets are available for purchase online.
