Pabst splits off show management

Seeking to protect its historic building from potential operating losses, the Pabst Theater Foundation has spun off a new entity that will book and run shows at the venue.

The move separates the foundation “from the risks inherent in booking and staging shows,” Kevin Lindsey, president of the organization’s board, said in a statement Friday.

Management of shows at the Pabst, Riverside Theater and Turner Hall now will be handled by a recently formed, taxpaying company, PTG Live Events LLC.

Gary Witt, who was executive director of the Pabst group that managed the shows for the foundation, is president of PTG.

The spinoff will have no effect on the staging of shows at the Pabst and the other venues, or on the concertgoer’s experience, said Andy Nelson, public relations director for PTG.

“In terms of the public, nothing will change,” he said.

Nelson, who formerly filled a similar role with the Pabst group that ran the shows under the foundation, said PTG hopes to operate profitably.

That appears to be a strong possibility, tax returns filed by the foundation indicate.

The foundation lost money every year from 2012 through 2014 — a total of $725,000 for the three years, the returns show.

But those paper losses included more than $1.1 million in noncash expenses for depreciation. By not owning the Pabst building, PTG should be free of those expenses, though it conceivably might have to pay rent to the foundation.

Milwaukee businessman and philanthropist Michael Cudahy set up the foundation to buy the Pabst for $1 from the city in 2002, then poured his own money into the organization as it amped up the local music scene. As of 2014, the foundation owed Cudahy $1.9 million on a loan he had made to support the organization’s operations, according to the tax return.

Built in 1895 by Capt. Frederick Pabst, one of Milwaukee’s beer-brewing giants, the Pabst Theater is a National Historic Landmark.