Gymnopedie is located underneath an active church in a residential neighborhood. We are grateful to the church and our neighbors for letting us get creative in the basement. We know that occasionally our productions and events push the limits of their comfort zones. We take substantial measures to minimize this.
We’ve created this page to apply a fair standard to all events so that inquirers understand why we say yes to certain events and no to others.
We use several factors to assess your event, including event type (especially as it relates to the energy level of the event), capacity, day of week, end time, age of guests as it relates to legal drinking age, and your prior experience hosting successful events at Gymnopedie.
This page has a lot of details, as our events cover a wide range of scenarios that we must plan ahead for.
As you might expect, we can’t host events that dramatically conflict with the Christian church, such as Satanic events, ayahuasca ceremonies, and sex parties. We also must say no to events explicitly centered around 420 / marijuana. Although recently legalized in New York, weed still makes church ladies uncomfortable, and we sympathize with that.
We always count capacity as a total of crew + talent + audience.
If your event involves people coming in and out throughout, you can have a much higher total number of people visit your event, as long as the people inside at any given point matches our maximum capacity.
When it comes to live events in the evenings, we generally say no to events that are produced by folks who are younger than age 25. We've been burned too many times by that wild youth energy, which we love, but which is too much for our mellow church basement. We realize that not every young event has that wildness, but we err on the side of caution.
For mellow daytime events that include our Gymnasium space, we are open to a maximum capacity of 200. The example we’ll offer you here is a Saturday afternoon film screening. The more similar your event is to a Saturday afternoon film screening, the more likely we are to allow you a high capacity. There is a small amount of case-by-case assessment, in addition to all the criteria on this page.
For first time renters who are booking Gymnasium events that go past 10pm, they may host a maximum of 80 people, crew + talent + audience. The event must be cleaned and wrapped no later than midnight.
Second time renters who’ve successfully hosted a similar event can host a maximum of 100 people in the full venue until midnight.
First time renters booking Classroom-only events that go past 10pm may host a maximum of 50 people and must wrap at midnight.
We realize that some dance parties love to go all the way into the morning, but we have decided to clean and wrap all evening events at midnight.
Rules for events
All our renters are agreeing to the following rules:
No underage drinking - Our renters work with our venue personnel to strictly enforce a policy of no underage drinking. We reserve the right to ask the ID of anyone drinking who appears remotely underage, and we reserve the right to ask any underage drinkers to leave. If we assess the an event is largely centered around underage drinking, the renter agrees in advance that we will end the event early, at the time that assessment is made.
No smoking indoors - Our renters work with our venue to strictly enforce a policy of no smoking indoors. Vaping is ok if it creates no odor, but it isn’t the greatest, as it can sometimes visually encourage other types of smoking. Smoking cigarettes and marijuana in our Backyard is allowed. If the Backyard is not a part of the rental, our renters work with the venue to get all smokers to walk around the block while they smoke. Smoking on the church’s front lawn or sidewalks is not allowed. If three separate incidents of smoking cigarettes or marijuana indoors occur at an event, the renter and venue agree to end the event early.
We minimize outdoor gatherings - In general, no people should be hanging out on the sidewalks and front lawn of the church. Queues before ticketed events is fine. Attendees are coming or going, not hanging out around the property. If more than 3 attendees are hanging out for a prolonged period on the sidewalk or front lawn, the renter works with the venue to clear these people. If the venue feels that prolonged hangouts on the front lawn and sidewalks have become a persistent and unchecked part of the event, the renter agrees to end the event early at the time of that assessment.
In particular, our neighbors and congregants complain when our attendees dress too provocatively and hang around outside. If an attendee at your event is wearing lingerie, fetish gear, or something like a bikini or underwear, we expect that these guests are quickly brought inside. In general, we prefer that guests dressed like this show up in street clothes and change inside.
Strictly enforcing capacity - If the venue performs a head count and finds that the event is 10 people over the agreed upon capacity limit, the venue works to reduce the capacity back to the maximum within 10 minutes. If the venue remains over capacity for over 10 minutes with no active efforts from the renters, the renter and venue agree to end the event early, at the time of that assessment.
Careful with our projector - Our venue reserves the right to decline renting our projector to any event. We’ve noticed that at medium and high energy events, drinks can sometimes be left on or near our projector. In order to prevent a drink spilling into our projector, we sometimes will say no to events where folks are going to be traversing the space and drinking.
Other reasons to end event early - We have experienced graffiti and intentional damage to our historic property at multiple events. If there are clear acts of belligerence, violence, or disrespect from your attendees, we agree to swiftly solve this problem. The event must quickly get back to a level of peace where it seems unlikely that the problem will happen again. If the likelihood of a second act of belligerence remains high, we agree to end the event early. Our venue personnel will make the assessment.
A final message of love and respect to you from Andrew - Personally, I love a much broader array of events than I can host at Gymnopedie. I love events that are loud, late, huge, crowded, extreme, provocative, and subversive. I love the people who are doing what they are doing and want to host their event here, and I am sorry that I must regularly say no. Know that it is because I also love the smaller art that is able to flourish here. In order to nurture those good things that are possible here, I must say no to other good things that don’t fit our space. The act of the church asking me to leave is a real risk, and this risk is absolutely influenced by the results of each event we host here.
Please also know that my criteria does err on the side of caution. I realize that there is a contingent of events that would happen perfectly smoothly at our venue but are being told no. Unfortunately, I am saying no to some events that suit our space. I apologize for this caution. It is the most effective way I’ve found to navigate the nebulous area of events that are potentially harmful to the future of Gymnopedie.