Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings. For today’s blog post, I will be exploring the history of the Avalon Ballroom, a famous location in San Francisco during the late 1960s! I thought this would serve as an ideal companion to yesterday’s post about ‘60s Icons of Style and Art, leaving this as a bit of a ’60s Summer of Love themed Weekend here at White Rose of Avalon. Without further ado, let’s discuss the Avalon Ballroom!
So, the Avalon Ballroom was a music venue located at 1244 Sutter Street in San Francisco, California. The Avalon Ballroom was in what is known as the Polk Gulch neighborhood. I should note that the venue still exists, but it is now called Skylight at the Avalon, and it is not the same as it would have been in the 1960s. In the ‘60s, it occupied the top two levels of a multistory building. There was a dance floor in front of an elevated stage, and even a second-floor balcony. The dance floor was very large, able to accommodate hundreds of dancers, and the venue had a total capacity of 500. The venue operated as the Avalon Ballroom from 1966 to 1968, being in full swing during the Summer of Love in 1967! Of course, as noted above, the venue did reopen in 2003.
The Avalon Ballroom was developed as a venue by Chet Helms starting as far back as 1962. Helms, who was a college friend of Janis Joplin, was also a key figure in the Psychedelic movement! Helms would inspire much of the ’60s music movement, also going on to work with Bill Graham, who himself would go on to develop the Fillmore Auditorium. This is partly because the concerts had to move from the Avalon Ballroom after a noise-abatement order. Helms is still remembered today for many of the incredible, and very collectible, Psychedelic Concert Posters! The Avalon Ballroom held amazing concerts with artists like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe and the Fish.
Even before the 1960s, the venue that would be the Avalon Ballroom was being used for notorious stag parties that were organized by a man called ‘Little Caesar’ Granelli, which were said to have featured Anton LaVey playing the organ in the 1950s! I find it very interesting that this locale has had so much history and so much infamy, even pre-dating its Psychedelic heyday.
Now that I have gone over some of the history of the Avalon Ballroom, I want to discuss the name. Obviously, I adore that this iconic seat of the Psychedelic movement and 1960s music would be named after my beloved Avalon. I do not think it was a coincidence (as I do not believe in them) that a place which saw so many people opening their perceptions with LSD would be named for a Blessed Isle of the Otherworld. I firmly believe that Ancient Avalon was making herself known to the artists of the ‘60s, encouraging them to open their minds and remember the truth that had long been forgotten. In many ways, the Summer of Love, the ‘60s music artists, and the experimentation with Psychedelics led to the Hippies opening up their eyes to old arcane wisdom and occult knowledge. This would spread out, and I believe ultimately lead to the rise of Pagan beliefs becoming more commonplace over time. That is why I like to think that the Goddesses of Avalon helped spread this remembrance of Ancient Wisdom to the ‘60s spiritual seekers through places like the Avalon Ballroom!
I hope you have enjoyed this short look at this iconic venue. Do you wish you could have attended concerts at the Avalon Ballroom during the Summer of Love? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is a concert poster from when The Grateful Dead played the Avalon Ballroom. I found the poster on https://thesanfranciscanmagazine.com/the-rise-of-the-rock-ballroom/.
LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries
Further Reading
- https://byskylight.com/venues/san-francisco/skylight-at-the-avalon
- http://brucebase.wikidot.com/venue:avalon-ballroom-san-francisco-ca
- https://www.discogs.com/label/317524-Avalon-Ballroom?srsltid=AfmBOoqWu3qObvWng8mC_t7MjWP5OxEb4E2Tdn1KU43yAV0TJc89Zh51
- https://www.foundsf.org/Avalon_Ballroom_on_Sutter
2 responses to “The Avalon Ballroom: Iconic Concert Venue During the Summer of Love”
A wonderfully evocative and insightful post! You’ve done a fantastic job weaving together the concrete history of the venue with its deeper, mystical significance. The connection you draw between the name “Avalon” and the era’s spiritual awakening is a truly unique and compelling perspective. It’s a perfect fit for your blog’s theme and a great companion to your previous post. This really makes me wish I could have been there to experience it!
I agree! I would have loved to have been there during the Summer of Love. It truly seems to have been a magickal time and place, which is part of what inspired the post in the first place. I am so glad that my tying together the name of Avalon with Avalonian spirituality did not seem too far a stretch! As always, thank you for reading and commenting!