Former comedy club site is newest music venue in Broad Ripple

The owners of new Broad Ripple venue Turntable added a 24-foot-by-12-foot stage when renovating the former Crackers Comedy Club location. (Photo provided by Forty5 Presents LLC)

Vintage vinyl is celebrated at new Broad Ripple music venue Turntable, from the establishment’s name to a wall of album covers on display to a planned exterior sign depicting a record.

Taking over the former upstairs location of Crackers Comedy Club at 6281 N. College Ave., Turntable aspires to offer a tasteful listening experience for attendees, said Jenny Boyts, CEO of concert company Forty5 Presents LLC.

“The hope is that it feels a little like you’re walking backward through aesthetics related to vinyl and the music that people experience at home,” Boyts said.

But chances to catch living-room performances by singer-songwriters Bob Schneider and John Moreland, or English pop artist Kate Nash, are rare.

Forty5, the company that operates the iconic Vogue venue next door at 6259 N. College Ave., has Schneider (Oct. 18), Moreland (Dec. 6) and Nash (Oct. 20) lined up for shows at Turntable—which has a seated capacity of 150 and a standing capacity of 400.

Boyts said it’s logical to add a smaller room to complement the 950-capacity Vogue and Forty5’s Rock the Ruins series at Holliday Park, which can accommodate 2,500 attendees.

“This business really thrives and grows on artist and agent relationships,” Boyts said. “As we’re continuing to see success across all of our venues, we want to be able to offer agents and artists multiple options for venues as they’re growing in their career. We didn’t have this tool [of the Turntable’s capacity] in our toolkit. We wanted to start artist relationships much earlier.”

Turntable, which received approval for its liquor license this week, is ramping up to a calendar of about 90 events per year, Boyts said. The former Crackers showroom now has one entrance for attendees ages 18 to 20 and one entrance for attendees 21 and older.

The corner stage where comedians such as Jim Gaffigan, D.L. Hughley, Marc Maron, Lisa Lampanelli and Daniel Tosh performed has been transformed into an enclosed lounge for Turntable artists. (Crackers closed its Broad Ripple location in 2017. The company operates a downtown club at 207 N. Delaware St.)

Forty5 installed a larger stage, 24 feet by 12 feet, next to the artist lounge.

In Turntable’s bar area, an eye-catching wall of album covers is accented by a functional stereo.

A large neon sign advertising Crackers has yet to be removed from the building’s exterior, but that update may be in the works, Boyts said. Instead of a prominent new sign featuring the word “Turntable,” a subtle neon representation of a vinyl record is likely to be installed above the street-level entrance.

“Our intent right now is to give this a bit of a speakeasy music venue vibe,” Boyts said. “The idea is that as long as that vinyl record neon sign is lit up, we have a show or an event here.”

The early dates on Turntable’s calendar include Indiana flair thanks to an Oct. 25 show by Pendleton native Alex Williams and a Nov. 9 show by Fort Wayne native Lauren Sanderson. For more information, visit turntableindy.com.

Boyts said the ability to showcase more artists as they develop their careers translates into “a bit of healthy competition in the market, making sure that folks in the city are getting to hear and have access to really good music.”