With a new boss in town, The Queen in Wilmington looks to reclaim its crown

One of the main goals of the incoming new general manager of The Queen is to bring back a fuller calendar of concerts to Wilmington, especially beefing up offerings of local acts on its three stages.

A main piece of the puzzle was launching a "Live & Local" series in September: a free Wednesday happy hour in The Queen's Knights Bar with local acts performing unplugged.

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Since then, the weekly event has caught not just the attention of music fans, some of whom hadn't been to The Queen in a while, but also the local music community.

"This is great to see," Phil Matarese of local act MEGA posted online recently when he saw Wilmington rockers Eastern Elk were playing a free pre-show set at the Knights Bar ahead of a performance on the main stage by national act The Mountain Goats that same night.

"This is the exact kind of common-sense local music community connection to the larger events that The Queen has been passing on since its inception. Happy to see new leadership is trying new things," added Matarese, one-time live music booker for Dew Point Brewing Co. in Yorklyn.

The Queen's going back to its royal roots

After all, local acts were not a major focus for Live Nation when it ran the venue before Queen owners/developers Buccini/Pollin Group took over operations in 2020.

For Devin Ball, the theater's new general manager fresh from a stint as a director at New Orleans House of Blues, his plans echo The Queen's first operators, World Cafe Live. They had stressed that the Market Street music hall was to be a "community clubhouse," hosting a regular schedule of area acts in an attempt to make the theater a hub for the local scene.

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World Cafe Live ran the theater from its opening in 2011 until 2017 with Live Nation in charge from 2017 until 2020 when Buccini/Pollin took the reins. Live Nation still books some of the venue's national acts.

Among those Delaware performers and bands who have already performed in recent months: Universal Funk Order, Larry Scotton Jr., Sug Daniels, Nadjah Nicole, The Collingwood, Darnell Miller, JD Webb, Richard Raw, Ty Mathis, Lower Case Blues, Alicia Maxwell Project, Sharon Sable & E. Shawn Qaissaunee and Zach Humenik & Sam Nobles.

Its "Live & Local" series has also teamed up with Wilmington Brew Works to host music nights at the brewery on Fridays.

The Queen's popular monthly drag brunch, hosted by Wilmington's own Miss Troy, was regularly selling out the upstairs 200-person Crown Room and now is held in the main downstairs music hall. It had been capped at 100 people. Now that it's downstairs, the cap will move to 150 with fans sitting at 10-top tables with a buffet brunch.

"I want to have shows going four nights a week in the smaller [Crown Room] and Knights Bar in addition to all the bigger shows downstairs," Ball says. "The biggest marketing tool in the world is just being open."

National acts in recent months have ranged from Soulja Boy and Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon to Peter McPoland and comedian Jimmy Dore.

Ball: From U.S. Navy to New Orleans to Wilmington

Ball, 34, grew up in Florida near Orlando before his time as an operations specialist for the U.S. Navy, serving for nearly a dozen years and graduating from Southwestern College with a degree in operations management and supervision during his enlistment.

After leaving the Navy, he moved to New York City and became head house manager for the Baryshnikov Arts Center. He then moved to New Orleans where he earned a master of science degree in arts administration from the University of New Orleans while also working his House of Blues job.

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It was this past spring when he heard about the open general manager position at The Queen. And after a few conversations over the phone with Buccini/Pollin Group managing partner Chris Buccini and a Zoom interview, he flew north to meet Buccini in person and see The Queen with his own eyes. It was his first time in Delaware.

He says he was blown away by the historic theater: "I was like, 'Holy s---. This is so awesome."

The pair then had dinner at Le Cavalier at Hotel du Pont, and Ball was offered the job, arriving in town three months ago.

Under the hood at the new Queen; the return of food

Under World Cafe Live, The Queen had plenty of mojo, especially in its early years coming off the building excitement around its opening. The operators had largely succeeded in making it a clubhouse for the local music scene while also drawing crowds for its WXPN 88.5-FM-sponsored shows, leveraging the popular regional World Cafe Live and WXPN brands.

For Live Nation's three-year run, much of the local programming melted away as more focus was given to more profitable, downstairs national act shows that would sell plenty of tickets. While some big shows were held, the theater was dark on most nights even before the pandemic hit.

The theater's most recent general manager left in early 2023, meaning Ball arrived to find an operation that had been without a leader for more than a half year before he arrived in late August.

While the venue has a strong backbone, leaning on Buccini/Pollin Group's business infrastructure while leaderless, Ball is still reviewing operations and making changes to get The Queen back on her feet.

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Unlike Live Nation where directives can sometimes come from far above, Ball knows who to make happy: the man who hired him. The Queen has been one of Buccini's pet projects dating back to before the $25 million refurbishment of the then-abandoned 234-year-old building even began.

"With them running The Queen, we can cut out the red tape and don't need the bureaucracy. There's not some dude in Beverly Hills calling us and telling us what needs to be done better," Bell says. "Chris is spiritually invested in this place."

For now, Ball is focused on the simple stuff, such as tackling inventory and accounting in addition to programming. He is busy adding more shows and keeping the doors open more often, eschewing major events such as festivals or block parties for the time being as he and his 10-person full-time staff work to stabilize the theater.

While the sit-down dinners from World Cafe Live's Queen era will not be returning, the new year will bring the introduction of club food at the downstairs shows with quick bites such as chicken tenders and pizza available from heated display cases situated in the music hall.

In the meantime, Ball continues to add structure to a spot that didn't have much of it until he arrived.

"The two words I preach are consistency and simplicity," Ball says. "If you can give me those two things, it's going to work."

Have a story idea? Contact Ryan Cormier of Delaware Online/The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier) and X (@ryancormier).

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: This U.S. Navy veteran is in charge of bringing buzz back to The Queen