The Sylvee…an intimate front row seat where 2500 of your best friends sing with the hottest artists in the country. Madison is about to enter a new era of live performances. The East Washington corridor known for its grit, work ethic and industrial past is about to become the new epicenter for live music in the Midwest. Now, over 50 years after she rode into town in that white Rambler the company she helped build, the brand that she formed as Frank Productions is investing even deeper into the place they call home.Ī new venue for emerging artists, established cultural icons and community events is about to rise in the heart of a Madison renaissance. And the loving center of Frank Productions was gone. The Matriarch of the Madison music family. Sylvia Frank – or Sylvee as she was affectionately known, passed away in 2006. Their commitment to curating young talent and to support music education is deeply rooted in their very Madison lifestyle. The Frank Family’s investment into our community and choice to stay in Madison has inspired and changed us. They would bring Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and U2 to sold out performances of over 60,000 people to historic Camp Randall Stadium. In the 1980’s and 90’s Franks’ sons Larry and Fred would again change Madison forever. The Frank family grew and so did their reputation within the business of live music. Madison became a critical stop on the way to the top and the Frank name would forever be linked to the “World Tour.” The Midwest became more than Chicago to many artists. Over the years, the Franks would literally define the very brand that is today – Madison, Wisconsin. Cash, Clapton, The Grateful Dead and Bowie…Springsteen, The Harlem Globetrotters and Sesame Street on Ice. They would bring us Sinatra, Presley, Bennett and Ellington a year later. Through the eyes of their young boys, business chops cut on the streets of Chicago and an empty stage in Madison, Herb and Sylvia understood the power of live music. In Los Angles, The Beach Boys released “I Get Around.”Īnd in the Midwest hamlet of Madison Wisconsin, Herb and Sylvia Frank were about to bring it all to us…live…loud…and in color. From New York, Ed Sullivan was broadcasting the British Invasion in black and white. The country was at the beginning of a massive cultural revolution and Dane County Veterans Memorial Coliseum was about to become a front seat witness to it all. Herb and Sylvia ran the box office at the famous Capitol Theatre for a spell and then in 1967 were introduced to a new venue. In Chicago, Herb and Sylvia Frank packed the kids in a white Rambler and moved their young family to Madison Wisconsin where they would change the music and performance landscape forever in the city by the lakes. Elvis Presley watched The Beatles land in New York that February, the Stones began their first US tour and Dylan released ‘The Times they are a Changin’…
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