Grassroots venue loss is an inventory problem, not a news cycle

A closure is an event; capacity is a stock. Cities that track only the first learn how many rooms shut in a given year, but not whether the circuit they depend on still exists at the capacities that matter.

Rooms, not addresses

Multi-room buildings are the most common source of double counting in venue data. A single address with three rooms is three units of programming capacity, and losing one of them is a real loss that an address-level count will miss entirely.

Replacement is the question that matters

Capacity lost in the under-350 band is rarely replaced in the same band. When it is replaced at all, it tends to reappear at a larger capacity in a different part of the city, which changes who can realistically play and who can realistically attend.

• Track open, dormant and closed as distinct states; dormancy usually precedes closure.
• Record licensed capacity per room, not advertised capacity per building.
• Exclude seasonal and temporary capacity from structural supply.
• Confirm closures independently before entering them.

What cities can do with this

An inventory supports policy questions a closure count cannot answer: whether a licensing change altered supply, whether new development replaced what it displaced, and which capacity bands a market no longer has.