New Long Island City Music Venue Hosts First Public Shows

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — A new 20,000-square-foot music venue in Long Island City opens to the public Thursday.

The Arc is debuting its performance space on May 9 with a series of four warehouse parties, all open to the public. The parties will feature performances by Shigeto and Flamingosis, DJ sets and immersive art projections.

The massive venue, housed in a former sushi factory at 36-30 36th St., includes two performance spaces — a smaller room that fits 389 people and a larger room for 1,690 concertgoers — and a recording studio that will be open 24-7 .

John Belitsky, a Queens native and founder of music website DMNDR, decided in 2017 to open a venue to showcase talent along every stage of a musician's career — the mission that gives The Arc its name.

Former Webster Hall executive Rich Pawelczyk got on board as The Arc's chief operations officer, and Grammy award-winning producer Adam Abeshouse is overseeing the acoustics.

"We really are in the business of delivering sound," Pawelczyk told Patch in 2018.