Williamson Reporter recently published a story related to noise complaints precipitated by events at Haute Spot, a Cedar Park venue that has repeatedly been the subject of such complaints. While Haute Spot is listed as the venue on entertainment guides and ticketing sites, Tom Spano, Haute Spot’s CEO, issued the following statement disavowing responsibility for the events and minimizing the extent of the complaints to “a few neighbors” negatively impacted:
Haute Spot is officially closed for renovations and will be reopening in March to bring amazing food, drinks, and entertainment to the Central Texas region. These events are happening on the large festival field to the north of our venue which is why they sound louder than inside the venue. While Haute Spot is closed, we’re proud to support our good friends at Love And Lightstream who are bringing amazing music, employing hundreds of out of work entertainment industry people, and donating proceeds to two amazing local non-profits, Black Fret and HAAM, to ensure out of work musicians in the Austin area are able to pay their rent and put food on the table. We understand that a few of the neighbors are negatively impacted by the sound. That said, Love and Lighstream is properly permitted by the city of Cedar Park, always ends their shows on time, and always keeps the sound levels below the mandated decibel level. In this case, the good they are doing greatly exceeds the negative. Austin is the world’s music capital and while so many of our local and regional musicians and entertainers are out of work due to covid, we must do all that we can as a community to ensure those musicians are taken care of. – Tom Spano, CEO, Haute Spot
While Spano says Haute spot is closed in the statement published above, Haute Spot is listed as the event venue on Eventbrite, the site used to sell tickets to the event.
According to the Love & Lightstream website, only 200 cars [are] admitted each evening” and music fans are invited to “join [their] global community online for … completely free, highest quality possible livestream coverage.”
While Spano and the promoters have not published attendance numbers, this recent live video published on the Love & Lightstream facebook page garnered just over 400 views at the time of this article’s publication, approximately four hours after it was streamed.
Black Fret, one of the organizations that Spano says the events benefit, is actively promoting the events to its 7,609 facebook followers, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians – HAAM makes no mention of the events to its 14,016 facebook followers.
Several more Love & Lightstream events are planned, with Haute Spot listed as the venue according to the Love & Lightstream page on the Eventbrite ticketing platform.
While Spano minimizes the complaints as “a few of the neighbors are negatively impacted by the sound,” the events can be heard and over a mile away. Thousands of residences are within a mile radius of the venue, dozens of complaints citing sound audible inside residences and even shaking walls and windows have been posted on social media platforms like Facebook and Nextdoor, and the Cedar Park Police Department has received many noise complaint calls about Haute Spot events.
Williamson Reporter 