Venerable Seattle entertainment venue the Crocodile has been sold to a consortium of out-of-towners led by talent manager Jimmy Miller and Mike McAvoy, The Onion‘s former CEO. As reported in the Seattle Times, the group’s Comedy Tent umbrella company also runs the Upright Citizens Brigade, the film and television company Abso Lutely Productions, and Pittsburgh comedy/music club Bottlerocket Social Hall. The sale was announced June 8 at the National Independent Venue Association conference in Minneapolis.
The new ownership team plans to stabilize the Crocodile’s financial situation; the club had racked up more than $1.6 million in debt since its 2021 move into its vast 1st Avenue facility. Those difficulties led to the closure of Madame Lou’s and the comedy-centric space Here-After in December 2025. At present, Comedy Tent maintains that there will be no disruption to scheduled Crocodile events; Hotel Crocodile remains open for business.
Chris Copen, who founded Bottlerocket and now serves as Comedy Tent’s managing director of independent venues, will provide crucial support to Crocodile management, who will continue daily operations. In a phone interview, Copen assured Croc loyalists that Comedy Tent would not change the Belltown venue’s programming. “We bought it because we were really excited about the music,” Copen said. “Obviously, we have a lot of comedy connections and we’d love to bring even more comedy into that room. But I think the general mindset in the main room will stay the same. We’d love to book more shows, that’s for sure,” he said, laughing.
As for the burning question of whether Comedy Tent will reopen Madame Lou’s and Here-After, the answer is yes… and no. “It’s definitely our plan to open something in the basement,” Copen said. “Neither Madame Lou’s nor Here-After was viable by itself. But it doesn’t mean there weren’t great things happening in those rooms, things that deserve a home. Our hope is to build that home.
“Right now we’re talking about taking the best stuff that was happening in Madame Lou’s and the best stuff that was happening in Here-After and putting them in a place that makes sense for both of them—along with all kinds of fun and creative things that that type of room would allow, that maybe the two previous rooms couldn’t allow. In short, the plan is 100 percent to open the basement, with similar capacities to Madame Lou’s and the Here-After.” He noted that this will require renovations.
Comedy Tent isn’t wasting any time, as they already started booking on Tuesday. Copen said, “I’ve already gotten some artists they want to start bringing and some of those are going to happen as soon as this fall.” Also, former Crocodile talent buyer Kelsey O’Grady will be returning in mid June and “will be diving in headfirst at building back the calendar as quickly as we can. I don’t want to force us into doing bad shows that we don’t absolutely believe in just because we have empty dates on the calendar. But I also don’t want to wait around and let it be slow if we don’t have to.”
At Bottlerocket, Copen books 30 percent music, 30 percent comedy, and 40 percent a variety of other activities. Those include film screenings, a lecture series with Pittsburgh college professors, film premieres, dance parties, Mario Kart tournaments with a live band, bingo with an Elvis impersonator, trivia, and karaoke. “What’s helped Bottlerocket so quickly is that we have so many unique things you can only see at Bottlerocket, and we want to figure out how we can bring those to Seattle as quickly as possible.”
However, this wildly eclectic programming ethos won’t apply to the Crocodile’s 750-capacity main room. “Music is easier to do at that size. We do have comedians who we do think can play that room. We’re not going to force ourselves to book comedy shows if there aren’t acts we absolutely love that we think would do great in the space.
“I know people are going to see the words ‘Comedy Tent’ and think, ‘Oh, great, the Crocodile’s a comedy club now,’ but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This is a totally new thing for our company to back a music-first space, and that’s why we’re excited about it.”
Copen lives in Pittsburgh, but he says he will work in Seattle every month for at least a week at a time. “The Crocodile is run by the people who have always run [it] and those people live in Seattle. I view my role as purely additive. I just want to add to their team where they feel like they need support, where I can add to their operations—whether that’s booking comedy or taking different approaches to things.
“All of our businesses [are] built on the idea of community. People come to UCB because they want community. Bottlerocket works because it’s a community-focused bar. All of our businesses require authentic, community buy-in. To have that, you need to be authentically in the community. We recognize that that’s an important part of our business, and there’s no shortcut to that. [The Crocodile has] a great team with a lot of smart people. There’s definitely no plan to run it from Pittsburgh.”
When asked how Comedy Tent plans to get the Crocodile out of debt and make it profitable, Copen said, “The Crocodile at this point is out of debt. We’ve already done that. We wouldn’t have gotten involved if we didn’t have a very good plan to [make the venue profitable]. I can’t say specifics, but we’re really encouraged by what we’ve done in Pittsburgh in a challenging market in a challenging industry, and we’re excited to bring it to Seattle and try it at a bigger level.
“It’s not often that this kind of thing gets to happen. I’m at the National Independent Venue Association conference and everybody here’s really excited about it, because they know how rare it is.”
