JJ Gonson spoke before the ONCE Virtual Venue “ArtBeat Takeover: Kick-Off Dance Party.”

By Rachel Berets

Last Friday night, music venue ONCE Somerville hosted a dance party. There were spinning records, good tunes, and flashing lights, but no crowded dance floor because ONCE has taken things virtual.

Since mid-March, the unique performance space and its counterpart catering company, Cuisine en Locale, have been closed due to COVID-19. As of now, ONCE has almost no revenue, subsisting off of money from GoFundMe and a federal loan. Virtual events like last Friday’s dance party are part of owner JJ Gonson’s attempts to keep people employed and engage the community during this period of social distancing.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited.

With ONCE closed, how have you been able to make money?

When we were first closed, we made a GoFundMe and that was great for getting everybody through closing and paying some bills. We were granted a Payroll Protection Program loan (PPP) which has kept a few people employed and that has enabled us to do the virtual stuff that we’ve been doing.

Cuisine en Local has been doing this macaroni and cheese club called Club Mac, you can order online and we do amazing, weird, great flavors like lobster mac and cheese. That is really super fun and I think that all of these things are really important for community and local food and music, but there’s no money in it.

What are some of the virtual events you’ve been holding?

Most of what we have on the virtual venue is artists who have made recordings. Sometimes there are recordings of them performing from their bedrooms but most of the time they are pretty elaborate. Artists have proven themselves to be very good video editors. Everything lives on the ONCE YouTube channel. There’s a lot of performances, there’s some commentary, there’s a little bit of demo.

From a community perspective I think it has been really helpful to a lot of people to have this virtual space where we come together, make art, watch art, and talk to each other. I think community is very valuable.

ONCE is a member of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA). Can you talk more about that?

NIVA is lobbying to get bail out for independent venues so that in two years when there is music again, there will be venues. If they can’t get funding, they predict that 90 percent of independent venues will close in the next three months. And I think they’re right because there’s no revenue. And it doesn’t mean that there’s not opportunities for revenue. We are doing virtual recordings that ultimately will be soundstage recordings and … we can get people to hire us to produce these videos.

I have this sort of fantasy of when we can host a small number of people in Phase 3 … We could have a twenty-person wedding and we could film it in this beautiful place. I have all these ideas but we can’t do them yet. Twenty people without a bar is not going to keep us open.

What sort of work have you been doing with ArtBeat, the Somerville Arts Council’s annual festival? 

So what we’ve been doing with ArtBeat is something that we are just starting to do promotionally which is recording performances on the soundstage. It’s one person, it’s a closed situation … We only allow a few people in the room, we have a plexiglass divider on the stage to keep the singer isolated … This has been super exciting to work on this project with them and the recordings are gorgeous.

How has the Somerville community supported you?

The community is f—— brilliant. We are so lucky, we have so many friends that have been so amazingly good to us. I could start to read your names. There are people who have volunteered hours of their time – lawyers, tech people to help us get the venue set up. Seriously, it has been incredible. People reach out and say can I help, how can I help, what can I do? We are so blessed.