Brooklyn Arts Center at St. Andrews

2 stars for being pretty, but my ears would have had a better experience if I’d just listened to the music on my phone in my bathroom. Terrible acoustics or sound guy… not sure which, but I always thought churches were built for acoustics. Also, FREEZING, even though it was packed with people dancing. I’ve never seen my breath at an indoor concert before. I truly want to love this place… it’s the perfect size & it’s in a great location, but I was sorely disappointed.

Saw Black Mantis and Highly Suspect in concert on August 18, 2015. It was my first time at this venue.
It’s a small intimate venue with pretty good acoustics. Being small gets you in close proximity to the performers and makes for a very high energy setting with lots of interaction.
The cost for the concert we attended was awesome, less than $ 10 per ticket to see an up and coming act!
They serve alcohol and the restrooms are relatively clean.
I will definitely keep checking for future concerts and events.

Had our wedding reception here 10÷15÷11, and it was a dream come true. Rich was a pleasure to work with, and the venue is a blank slate that you can make yours. Wonderful for pictures and acoustics, and a pretty courtyard if you’d like to host an outdoor cocktail hour or even ceremony. The space has so much character and is close to all that downtown Wilm has to offer – guests had a wonderful time!

The Brooklyn Arts Center is the most breathtaking venue I have ever seen. My fiancé and I knew it was the place for us when we first stepped through the door. It is beautiful, spacious and the location is perfect. The team there (especially Rich!) is AMAZING. Rich spent so much time with us answering all of our questions, promptly responded to any email I sent him and made me feel like I was his only bride (even though there were plenty more brides to worry about!) throughout the whole wedding planning process! I loved that my guests could stay in one place for the ceremony, cocktail hour & reception and we had the venue for as long as we wanted! You do not find that at other venues in Wilmington! We got to bring in our own rentals, food, décor — which is what made it special for us. I loved our venue and the crew here that made our dream wedding come true! Highly recommend the Brooklyn Arts Center!

A really cool place to have an event or gathering. Parking is a tad bit challenging.

So I went here for a concert the other night, Jeff Mangum from Neutral Milk Hotel. (His performance gets five stars, btw… deserves more like 20.) The acoustics take the cake as far as my feelings about the venue goes. This is a former (?) church so everything just sounds amazing. Its a well preserved building too, I could take a lot of pictures in this place! I would give it five stars except for two things. One, I wish there was a better selection at the bar. I do give them props for what they have, its just more about what they don’t have. Two, I paid good money for my tickets, I was a little disappointed about having to use a port-​o-​potty and forgo real soap and water for hand sanitizer. This isn’t the state fair, yo… Other than that, it was a great night!

Phenomenal… absolutely phenomenal. Buckethead 2012.
Everything was perfect, the sound, the decibels, the price, the space, the layout, the crowd, the bathrooms (inside now), 5 dollar teeners (in cans, but hell, they are colder than the beer at GLP).
I had a question about tickets, so called at 7:30pm on a Thursday, and the phone was forwarded automatically to a cell phone where the person was gladly available to help… very cool.
They ask you to empty your pockets at the door, but are pretty lax on the pat down.
BAC is a nice handy 20 minute walk from CFBW if you have any business that takes 20 minutes.
Tickets are available at Gravity Records for «day of show» prices, but without service fees.

My fiancé and I are in the beginning stages of planning our wedding, so we called to inquire about this fantastic space. Rich, the Executive Director, returned my call within an hour with a clear rate quote and told us it was available. He was friendly, professional, and very forthright (not always true in the wedding business!) When I told him how big our (very small) wedding was, he was actually honest and told us the space would probably be too big. He even recommended another venue in the Wilmington area. He followed up with a great email, saying they’d be happy to host my wedding if we still wanted to rent the space. Unfortunately, it’s a bit out of our price range, so we won’t be getting married here. Trust me, if I had a little more than a shoestring budget, I’d get married here and work with Rich in a heartbeat!

Disclaimer: The 3 star rating is a bit weighted in favor of the venue. I’ve tried to give a little credit to the fact that a few of the things I dislike about the venue happen to be pet peeves of mine and enough to make me angry, but I’ve found that many people don’t get as annoyed as I do by these things.
On the good side, the room is VERY cool. It’s a gutted old church with some tastefully hung white fabric suspended from the ceilings, cool lighting, and medieval looking chandeliers. Also, the two bands I’ve seen are two of my favorite acts to see. Credit here where credit is deserved. Someone there at least shares some of my taste in music, and that is appreciated.
That’s it for the good. At Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, I forgot my earplugs and was forced into a painful experience of trying to enjoy the band without them. There’s no amount of toilet paper that you can shove in your ears to fix sound that is way too loud and poorly mixed. (side note: the toilet paper came out of the porta-​potties outside. They have no public bathrooms… just renta-​johns fenced in around the smoking area outside. That part doesn’t bother me much, since I pee standing up, but not exactly what you expect from an «Art’s Center»).
I found a spot way up next to the stage that was almost out of the way of the front of house mix, and was able to enjoy the rest of that show. KDTU rocked the house.
Next show was Galactic. Crowd had multiplied and the place was packed like a sardine can. Go to get a beer… «6 dollars please». Ok I think… must be serving 16 or 24 oz beer then… NOPE. 12 oz Coors Light for 6 dollars. Nuf said. Outrageous. They told me «they have to make their money somehow». I guess they were giving the packed house worth of ticket money to charity… riiiiiight.
The sound at Galactic seems to have gotten worse since the KDTU show. I did notice that they had moved some of the speakers around, but obviously not for the benefit of better sound. This time I even had my earplugs, but they did not help much. Also, the fact that I was standing 20 feet in front of the main sound board and still needed ear plugs says multitudes about the fizzling nature of the soundmen’s hearing. Obviously deaf.
When they have reasonable beer prices, acoustic treatment to tame the boominess, and a soundman that is worth a S#!T I’d love to come back and offer up a better review. Until then, I am sorry that they are pulling acts away from Greenfield lake, and I will not be supporting their half-a$$ed attempt of living up to the expectations of being an «Art’s Center».