540

The 540 Club was located in the Quadrangle in Jeffersonville, Indiana (across the river from Louisville). It existed from very late 1998-1999, when the Fire Marshall shut the place down.

The 540 was a group project with upwards of 10 people pitching in money to get the place started, and many of them took part in the day to day operation and renovations of the place.

During the 540 Fest in 1999, organizer Mike Harpring was interviewed by a reporter for LEO (Louisville's free weekly paper). The reporter decided he had better prospects with his story at the Courier Journal (Louisville's daily paper), and sold the story to them instead. When the story showed up on the front page of the Features section (with a blurb on the cover of the CJ), it started an avalanche of trouble for the venue. The mayor, landlord, and fire marshall had all seen this article, and thought that there may be thousands of kids at this show! At most, it probably would have been 400, but they combined forces, and shut down the 540 the first day of the fest. Everyone blamed Mike, but it wasn't his fault, he could have had no idea that the reporter wasn't giving the story to LEO (as he told Mike) or that so many people would get bent out of shape about it and shut the venue down. He probably didn't even know that the venue didn't have the right permits to be a venue.

People involved:

Bands to play there:

There was an also an art show.