Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 01:11:00

It began as a pandemic improvisation - a stage in the parking lot so the shows could go on - and became one of Indianapolis's favourite venues in its own right. The HI-FI Annex, behind the Murphy Arts Building at 1043 Virginia Avenue in Fountain Square, is the 900-capacity outdoor sibling of the HI-FI, the city's tastemaking 400-cap indoor club. The Annex was born in summer 2020, when promoter MOKB Presents converted the building's back lot into a distanced concert yard. The formula outlived the emergency: a permanent stage, two full-service bars, a concessions stand, picnic-table seating and a perimeter of rehabbed shipping containers turned the quick pivot into a proper seasonal amphitheatre holding 900 general-admission or 300 fully seated. The programming leans the same way as the indoor room - indie rock, Americana, hip-hop and heartland songwriters, national tours matched with local showcases - but the Annex adds the all-ages, lawn-chairs-welcome format that Fountain Square lacked: kids five and under enter free, food trucks rotate, and outdoor shows wrap by 10 pm in deference to the neighbourhood. The setting is the city's best cultural density: the Murphy Arts Building houses galleries and studios, the LO-FI Lounge and HI-FI proper share the complex, and Fountain Square's restaurant-and-duckpin-bowling strip is steps away. MOKB's growing portfolio - which now stretches to the Nickel Plate Amphitheater and the Hoosier Lottery Stage - keeps the routing pipeline full. Practical notes: the season runs roughly April to October with shows Wednesday through Sunday, weather calls are posted on socials with tickets honoured or refunded on reschedules, and parking spreads across Fountain Square's lots and streets - the Red Line's Virginia Avenue stops are the stress-free play.