We started Grove Studios out of a passion for the Ypsilanti and Michigan music scene. We’re musicians, hip-hop artists, photographers, producers, creative industry entrepreneurs and friends who needed a space to do what we love. We looked around and realized there were lots of creative people just like us—full of passion with nowhere to practice and produce. We also believe that music and podcasts make the world a better place, so we concepted Grove Studios using the following core values for our business:
Integrity - We do what’s right, not what’s convenient
Resilience - We create success even with great challenges
People - Individuals & relationships are important
Our first location was an old auto shop on Michigan Avenue in Ypsi, where we were able to offer our very first services to the music and creative community. It included some shared rehearsal spaces that could be rented by the month or hourly 24/7, 365 days a year. That was a big goal of ours. We wanted to keep it affordable and flexible. It wasn’t fancy, but it did the job.
We were able to support Totally Awesome Fest and other live show efforts in one of the spaces there. Again, it was nothing fancy, but people came, and they supported us. Our community is totally awesome.
In 2019, we opened our new location at 884 Railroad Street in Ypsi. With the new location, we were able to operate in a true 24/7, 365 day a year capacity using state of the art technologies including automated recording with OpenLIVE and WiFi enabled locks allowing for disposable codes and easy online booking for our customers, and professional grade backlined equipment for all of our studio rooms.
We had over 600 online bookings at our studio in 2019, and our customers really showed us how valuable our resources have been to the music and creative community. People even say really nice things about us!
How We Were Doing Before Covid-19
With a little bit of luck, a lot of hard work, and a lot of personal investment from the co-founding team, we were able to win the Pitch Ypsi $5,000 competition with our vision for the future of music and creative studios using repurposed shipping containers. The judges believed in us, and we've had tons of support from the community. We are fortunate to have made it this far. That money was used to fund legal work to form our LLC and create our operating agreement and earliest social media campaigns to raise awareness about our project and business as well as secure a second round of funding. Here's a rendering of our concept:
Winning the contest also allowed us to divert our personal funds to opening our current location at 884 Railroad Street with greatly improved amenities for music, production, DJ and podcast creatives:
Prior to COVID-19, we secured a second round of funding from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and SPARK East via the Innovate Ypsi Grant. However, that funding cannot be used for things that keep us operating, like rent, utilities, software costs, website hosting, and other general business costs, including costs associated with making our facility safer to adhere to the challenges of COVID-19.
We have to use that money to work on the future shipping container concept, and while that is wonderful, our business surviving the COVID-19 world is our most difficult challenge to date. We're working to find ways to keep the lights on and servicing our creative community, but losing three months of revenue has been close to devastating.
During the shutdown and stay at home order, we continued to support artists with our Grove Sessions series of live streaming performances and interviews, along with a donation link to help pay our costs and for some revenue to the artists. You can view those video productions here, as well as on YouTube: bit.ly/youtubegrove and Facebook: facebook.com/pg/grovestudios1/videos
Where Are We At Now?
Since COVID-19, we have been hanging in there. Luckily, we have our health and optimism to push through these challenges.
But there is still a problem. While we are now open for business according to state recommendations, our financial projections are very low, mostly due to the fact that we have to operate at a diminished capacity. We are unable to use all 24 hours of daily service we normally provide and needed to have an hour buffer in between studio bookings so that someone from our team can sanitize microphones, keyboards, screens, and all the other frequently-touched studio surfaces. Furthermore, we've lost additional revenue that we originally counted on for stage management and PA rental since music festivals are cancelled for the foreseeable future.
As stated in the NATIONAL INDEPENDENT VENUE ASSOCIATION’s letter to Capitol Hill -- “Our passionate and fiercely independent operators are not ones to ask for handouts,” said Dayna Frank, NIVA Board President and owner of First Avenue in Minneapolis. “But because of our unprecedented, tenuous position, for the first time in history, there is legitimate fear for our collective existence.”
The funding raised here will go toward rent, utilities, payroll, ongoing software costs, and ongoing modifications for COVID-19. The social distancing requirements in our studio rooms and courtyard are going to make it challenging for at least 12-18 months, or until we can be at full capacity again.
How Can You Help?
Donate! Click the link below and give what you can - any amount will help us out!
Share this campaign with your friends and family, help spread the word. Use the links on the top or bottom of this page to quickly share.
If you prefer to give offline by check, please make a check or money order payable to Grove Studios LLC, 884 Railroad St., Ypsilanti, MI. 48197
Donation Link: https://donorbox.org/grove-sessions-livestream-event-donations-challenge
We'd like to thank the community for supporting Grove these past few years, and we're grateful for all who have reached out to offer words of encouragement. We've had some customers already returning to work in our studios, which is encouraging, and we look forward to seeing more people return soon!
Peace,
Rick Coughlin - CEO & Co-Founder
Breck Crandell - Chief Architect & Co-Founder
Erich Friebel - Director of Community Engagement & Co-Founder
Max Price - Head of Social Media & Marketing
Ashley Abdenour - Events Coordinator
Rod Wallace - Educational Programs Coordinator
Lori Stratton - Communications Coordinator
Tim Blackman - Video Marketing Coordinator
Taylor Greenshields - Audio Engineer
For info on each team member, visit: https://grovestudios.space/our-team/
For more info on our Advisory Board, visit: https://grovestudios.space/our-team/
