The name is Latin for "place of life," and the room takes it literally: live greenery on the walls, skylights open to the Milwaukee night and wood cut from century-old northern Wisconsin trees. Vivarium, at 1818 North Farwell Avenue on Milwaukee's East Side, opened in February 2024. The venue is the Pabst Theater Group's club-scale room, built to replace the beloved Back Room at Colectivo, which closed at the end of 2023 after eight years of introducing emerging acts to the market from a side room of a coffee roastery. The group bought the single-story commercial building a block and a half north of Brady Street in May 2023 and, with architects TKWA and builder Findorff, converted a vacant 4,500-square-foot stall into a 450-capacity, all-ages hall - leaving the neighboring Ethiopian Cottage, Domino's and Chopstix in place to feed concertgoers. The design brief was ecological and acoustic at once: natural cream city brick, dialed-in sound, clear sightlines and the plant-filled main room that gives the venue its name and its distinctly un-club-like calm. Programming continues the Back Room's mission - emerging touring artists across indie, hip hop, folk and electronic music, first Milwaukee plays and development slots that feed the group's larger rooms at Turner Hall, the Pabst and the Riverside. The opening months set the tone with Molly Grace, The Moss, Sir Chloe and Eliza McLamb, and the venue slotted into an East Side small-club ecosystem that includes Cactus Club, Shank Hall and Linneman's - deliberately complementing rather than crowding them. In a market bracing for a Live Nation-affiliated hall downtown, Vivarium is the local operator's answer: rooted in Milwaukee, sized for discovery and built to grow bands the way its walls grow plants. The all-ages policy is structural, not incidental - the Pabst group wants the next generation of Milwaukee concertgoers formed in this room, the way earlier ones were formed at the Back Room, with the skylights open and a first favorite band on stage.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 1818 N Farwell Ave, Milwaukee, WI, United States, 53202

Website: https://www.pabsttheatergroup.com/venues/vivarium

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 450

Opening Date: 22/02/2024

Serves Food

Accessible