Devlog · 3 October 2026

The Music Venue: audition bands and book the nights

The fourth walk-in venue is the one with a soundtrack. The Music Venue is a live music hall that you run as its booker: bands apply, you listen to them, sign the good ones and fill the calendar. Good nights make the city happier and bring money in; bad ones cost you reputation. It completes a busy week in which the City Hospital and the City Prison also opened.

A hall for 480

The Music Venue is in the Leisure menu and unlocks with Opportunity for everyone. You can build one per city. On the map it is a plum-brick hall with chasing marquee bulbs and a neon LIVE sign. On show nights the band's van sits at the loading dock and a queue forms behind a velvet rope, and once the doors open, light beams rise over the roof.

Bands apply, and you listen

New bands apply most days, more often as the venue's reputation grows. Each one is generated with a name, a line-up of instruments, a following, a fee and a rider of requests. There are 16 genres, from jazz and folk to metal and K-pop. Each band also has qualities you cannot see: how skilled they are, how much stage presence they have, and how reliable they are.

To find out, you audition them. Each band's demo is real music, composed on the spot for its genre and line-up, and you can hear the difference: a sloppy band drags and rushes and drops notes, while a band with presence plays with contrast and flourishes. You can also call a band up to the venue's 3D stage and watch them play.

Then you give your verdict, rating their musicianship and stage presence and deciding whether to sign them. The game scores your judgement against the hidden truth, and that trains your ear as a booker. The better your ear, the more an audition tells you about a band. Pass on a great band and you may read about their sold-out tour in the Gazette later on.

Booking the nights

Signed bands go on your roster, and the booking calendar lets you plan two weeks ahead: a headliner, an optional support act and a ticket price for each night. A forecast shows the expected crowd, how much the city likes the genre and the likely takings, using the same formula the simulation uses on the night. Friday and Saturday are the big nights, booking the same act too often thins the crowd, and cancelling at short notice costs reputation.

The crowd depends on the city itself: its population and happiness, how much it likes the genre, the band's following and the venue's reputation. Your city has a taste in music, drawn from who lives there. Students, families, retirees and young professionals like different things, and the character of each district shifts it too. The taste also moves over time towards genres that have had good nights.

What it does for the city

Good shows lift happiness by up to 3 points, along with land value and trade nearby, and famous acts draw visitors from out of town. The night's takings land in the treasury the next morning. The catch is noise: loud nights bother the homes next door unless you pay for soundproofing, and a busy night brings traffic and the odd bit of crowd trouble if security is light.

Backstage OS

Walk in and you see the whole building in 3D: the stage with its lighting rig, a dance floor that lights up, the bar, the foyer and box office, the green room and the booker's office. On show nights the crowd dances in time with the music. The venue's own computer, Backstage OS, holds the Auditions, Roster, Booking Calendar, Box Office and Taste Map apps.

The venues guide has more on running all four walk-in buildings.