Avalon Gala Returns April 24 to Support Catskill Music Venue

On April 24, the Avalon Lounge in Catskill will host its third annual Avalon Gala , a communal release that doubles as something more existential: a bid to keep one of the Hudson Valley’s most vital small venues alive. Cassandra Jenkins headlines, Camp Saint Helene also will also perform, with DJ sets from Ben Seretan, Matthew Cullen, Tiger singer, and DJ LeeJ. To understand the stakes, it helps to rewind to 2017, when Liam Singer and his wife, Laura, opened Hi-Lo, the coffee shop and community space that seeded what would become a local music scene. “There was a scene that had coalesced at Hi-Lo,” Singer recalls, “but Hi-Lo wasn’t really set up for it.” Noise complaints, structural limitations, and the inability to charge covers for shows made it clear that if the scene was going to grow, it needed a proper home. That home arrived in August 2019 with the opening of Avalon Lounge—a three-room, multi-level space that functions less like a traditional venue than a kind of choose-your-own-adventure night out. There’s the performance room, the bar, and an upstairs lounge, each with its own gravitational pull. Singer describes the experience as “a little adventure,” where a single evening might unfold across different atmospheres, sounds, and social pockets. Chef Annie Poole with Avalon lounge owners Liam and Laura Singer. Photo: Liz Ibarra From the outset, Avalon has balanced two missions that don’t always coexist easily: serving as an open platform for local and emerging artists while also attracting touring acts that might otherwise bypass a town like Catskill. Over time, that balancing act has paid off. “We’re just on more and more artists’ radars,” Singer says, noting a steady rise in the caliber of programming. But the ethos remains intact: Avalon is still, fundamentally, a space for the community that built it. That commitment comes at a cost. Running an independent venue in the Hudson Valley has always required improvisation, but in the years since Covid, the mar