Local bands looking to break into Barboza and Neumos will now be routed through Belltown’s The Rendezvous, according to a new announcement from Neumos management.

“Neumos and Barboza will soon begin expanding their booking reach in Seattle by incorporating the iconic Belltown venue, The Rendezvous, into their organization. Local talent buyer Evan Johnson has been hired on as a buyer with a heavy focus on local shows,” Neumos released today.

Guy Keltner, Neumos marketing manager, explained that Neumos hasn’t purchased The Rendezvous, but instead is utilizing it as the lower tier in the larger Neumos booking empire.

“One of Neumos’ owners, Jerry Everard, owns the Rendezvous building, so he’s already been heavily involved there for a while. This was our way of expanding our reach in the local market by incorporating the Rendezvous in. We book a lot of shows at Barboza, local shows and smaller national acts, that don’t necessarily fill the room, so I think we’re looking to send a lot of those down there [to The Rendezvous] if we can’t afford to put them on,” Keltner explained.

“Ideally you have a sort of tier where smaller bands go to Rendezvous, then move up to Barboza, then Neumos, then bigger bands move on to Showbox or Block Party. Ideally, Rendezous will serve as a litmus test for local bands. It really sucks to be in a room like Barboza when there’s no people there—it’s 200 capacity and maybe you get 30. It’ll feel much more cozy at Rendezvous, but if the show sells out there, we can bump it up to a larger venue in the organization.”

Evan Johnson, who previously interned at Neumos and has been booking at Rendezvous for a couple of months now, will focus on booking local acts at the space in addition to pairing them with larger national acts touring through Barboza and Neumos.