About
storied music venue • artist-centered community space
Hours + Location
Hours
- MON & TUES: 6:00 PM—12:00 AM
- WED & THURS: 4:00 PM—12:00 AM
- FRI: 4:00 PM—2:30 AM
- SAT: 1:00 PM—2:30 AM
- SUN: 11:00 AM—10:00 PM
Statement of Intent
Cactus Club is an artist-run, queer-owned, multi-disciplinary arts and performance space in Milwaukee, WI. Engaging with a culturally expansive and intergenerational cross-section of the city, the venue aims to foster meaningful relationships, highlight artistic voices, develop local talent, and provide high quality arts programming to folks near and far. The organizers work to provide a supportive and amorphous platform for creative experimentation, tastemaking curation and interactive educational opportunities.
Over the course of nearly 30 years, the club has progressed from niche indie venue to a cultural hub and national destination – thanks in no small part to the deep community ties, inspired participation, and collective growth of all involved.
CC Presents • The Basement Collective • Milwaukee Hardcore • X-Ray Arcade • SV Presents
We often collaborate with select partners on co-promoting on and off-site events. Our off-site shows are labeled as CC Presents. Capacity constraints, a busy calendar and a desire to host rememberable shows inform our CC Presents programming. We aspire to create comfortable and engaging environments regardless of location and often request venues to make all-gender bathrooms available and allow us to run door.
Milwaukee Hardcore Shows is a trusted friend who has consistently organized incredible shows at Cactus since 2021. Southeastern Wisconsin is very lucky to have another rad, all-ages venue, X-Ray Arcade. X-Ray’s Director of Programming JJ Kaiser also books The Basement Collective.
Opened in 2018, Sleeping Village is a prominent music venue in the Avondale neighborhood of Chicago. While shuttered due to the pandemic, Sleeping Village and Cactus Club connected through the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA). SV’s Kyle LaValley invited Kelsey to be on a panel about adventurous/non-standard venue merchandise. The two then discussed collaboratively presenting shows to nurture the ever-expanding bridge between creative communities in Chicago and Milwaukee. Sleeping Village’s first show at Cactus Club was in August 2021.