On April 25, the Avalon Lounge in Catskill will host its third annual Avalon Gala, a communal release that doubles as something more existential: a bid to keep one of the Hudson Valley’s most vital small venues alive. Cassandra Jenkins headlines, Camp Saint Helene also will also perform, with DJ sets from Ben Seretan, Matthew Cullen, Tiger singer, and DJ LeeJ.
To understand the stakes, it helps to rewind to 2017, when Liam Singer and his wife, Laura, opened Hi-Lo, the coffee shop and community space that seeded what would become a local music scene. “There was a scene that had coalesced at Hi-Lo,” Singer recalls, “but Hi-Lo wasn’t really set up for it.” Noise complaints, structural limitations, and the inability to charge covers for shows made it clear that if the scene was going to grow, it needed a proper home.
That home arrived in August 2019 with the opening of Avalon Lounge—a three-room, multi-level space that functions less like a traditional venue than a kind of choose-your-own-adventure night out. There’s the performance room, the bar, and an upstairs lounge, each with its own gravitational pull. Singer describes the experience as “a little adventure,” where a single evening might unfold across different atmospheres, sounds, and social pockets.
From the outset, Avalon has balanced two missions that don’t always coexist easily: serving as an open platform for local and emerging artists while also attracting touring acts that might otherwise bypass a town like Catskill. Over time, that balancing act has paid off. “We’re just on more and more artists’ radars,” Singer says, noting a steady rise in the caliber of programming. But the ethos remains intact: Avalon is still, fundamentally, a space for the community that built it. That commitment comes at a cost.
Running an independent venue in the Hudson Valley has always required improvisation, but in the years since Covid, the margins have grown thinner and less predictable. Singer and Laura handle much of the labor themselves—cleaning, cooking, booking, production—while supplementing income with outside work. “We’ve chosen to really stick true to a lot of our own aesthetic and functional principles, often over profit,” Singer says. It’s a choice rooted less in business logic than in belief: that the space provides something of real value, and that the community recognizes it.
The Avalon Gala was born out of a moment of acute financial precarity in early 2024, when a post-holiday downturn and winter slowdown pushed the business to the brink. Rather than launching a straightforward fundraising campaign, Singer and Laura opted for something more in keeping with the spirit of the place: a party. “You want to find a solution that’s fun,” Singer says. “You don’t want to try to guilt people into coming out. You want to give them a reason to come out.”
The result was a packed, high-energy night that combined performances, DJ sets, and an open invitation to support the venue financially. It worked—enough to stabilize the situation and establish the Gala as an annual ritual. Now in its third iteration, the event has become both a lifeline and a celebration, timed to coincide with the seasonal shift when the Hudson Valley begins to reawaken.
This year’s lineup reflects Avalon’s hybrid identity. Headliner Cassandra Jenkins returns to a venue that hosted her early in her career, before her national profile rose—a full-circle moment that underscores Avalon’s role as both incubator and destination. Camp Saint Helene, a band with deep roots in the Catskill scene, joins the bill alongside a roster of DJs and collaborators who blur the lines between performer and regular. The night will also spill into Avalon’s upstairs lounge, where additional programming leans into the venue’s anything-goes sensibility.
But the draw isn’t just the lineup. It’s the room. “It’s one of those nights where everyone hangs out,” Singer says. “You haven’t seen someone in six months, and you’re partying together.” In a region where social life often fragments along geographic and generational lines, the Gala functions as a kind of reunion.
That convergence is happening against the backdrop of broader industry shifts that have made small venues more vulnerable. Younger audiences are drinking less, cutting into bar revenue that venues traditionally rely on. Insurance costs are rising. Touring economics are shifting. The old model—door to the band, bar to the house—is no longer a reliable equation. Avalon feels all of it. And yet, it persists.
Singer frames Avalon’s role in the Hudson Valley ecosystem as twofold: a proving ground for emerging artists and a place where audiences can see nationally recognized acts in an intimate setting without leaving the region. It’s a modest description for a space that, in practice, has become something closer to a cultural anchor.
On any given night, Avalon might host a noise show, a folk set, a story slam, or a dance party. The vibe shifts, sometimes wildly. That unpredictability is part of the appeal. Singer compares it to “running a circus,” where each night brings a different configuration of energy and expectation.
The Gala distills all of that into a single evening: the music, the community, the precariousness, the joy. It is, in the end, both a celebration and a reality check—a reminder that spaces like Avalon don’t just exist. They are willed into being, night after night, by the people who build them and the people who show up.
