NIVA ‘25 Conference
JUNE 23–25, 2025 | MILWAUKEE, WI
With over 1,300 attendees at NIVA ‘24 in New Orleans, we’re thrilled to bring our fourth annual conference to Milwaukee. Known for its incredible independent venues, this vibrant city will host panels, programming, and unforgettable performances. Save the date and stay tuned for more details on programming and early bird registration.
WITH OPENING PARTY ON JUNE 22ND
It All Starts
On Local Stages
Live Independent is a certification program introduced by NIVA that elevates and safeguards independent venues, promoters, and festivals nationwide. Supported by the industry-leading live event discovery platform Bandsintown, the new initiative is designed to enhance the quality and sustainability of independent live entertainment while preserving the authentic and unique spirit that defines these cultural hubs. Live Independent aims to get more fans to come to independent stages and to convince more artists to play independent stages.
Live Independent
We are venues, promoters, festivals, and performing arts centers.
Our stages are the center of live performance in every community, including music, comedy, theater, spoken word, and dance.
NIVA In The News
WAtch: How independent music venues united to take on ticket price gouging
The PBS NewsHour's Tim McPhillips spoke to those behind the scenes and on stage, about a new era of cooperation to keep small, independent venues, and artists, in business. This segment, featuring NIVA members The Atlantis and First Avenue, details the challenges still threatening the marketplace of live music venues that artists need to survive.
You can also read the accompanying article by Tim McPhillips, Some small music venues kept rocking even after COVID shut them down. Here’s how they did it.
Recent News Highlights
As the nation’s live entertainment association, our mission is to cultivate, elevate, and advocate for a sustainable and equitable ecosystem of independent performance venues, festivals, and promoters.
The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) is the national trade association representing thousands of independent live entertainment venues, festivals, promoters, and more. NIVA works to preserve and nurture the ecosystem of live entertainment. NIVA empowers members and their teams with member benefits and advocacy on the state and federal level, an annual industry-leading conference, and more.
The National Independent Venue Association is committed to equity in our support and advocacy for independent venues, and seek to create and encourage opportunities for venues, promoters, and festivals owned, operated, and staffed by people of color, women, non-binary, LGBTQ+, veterans, and people with disabilities. NIVA is committed to creating and upholding a safe space for its members where respectful conversations around diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility can continue to happen. NIVA makes an ongoing commitment to prioritize DEI initiatives and learn more about best practices and approaches to DEI in the live performance industry, and to provide resources and professional development opportunities to support NIVA’s members in doing the same for their individual businesses.