100-year-old music venue gets makeover. What’s new for this historic Fresno ballroom?

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You’re standing in the middle of the Rainbow Ballroom trying to remember what it looked like before.

The sign out front is the same: the classic neon rainbow and martini glass that sits above an old-school marquee with the names of upcoming performers. This week it’s Banda Cohuich, Hijos de Barron and Grupo El Llamado. There’s a Grateful Dead tribute at the end of the month, which seems fitting, given what you know about the venue’s run hosting rock bands in the late 1960s.

Inside, the dance floor hasn’t changed either. The pale hardwood is worn from 10 decades worth of concerts, dances and celebrations. If you try, you can remember the feeling of the crowd and the slight give to the floor, as if it were swaying with the weight of those gathered.

The rest of the ballroom is markedly different, having recently undergone more than $500,000 worth of renovations and upgrades meant to modernize the historic music venue on Broadway Street in downtown Fresno.

“It’s night and day,” says David Valdivia, a Fresno promoter and businessman (whose father, Leo Valdivia, bought the Rainbow in 1980) and is responsible for establishing the venue as a go-to for regional Mexican concerts and dances.

These are the first major renovations at the ballroom in decades, he says.

‘It needed a face lift’

Some of the changes are cosmetic.

The interior has the look of a sleek, modern nightclub. The walls have been painted black or given marble facades or textured with gold accents. The bathrooms have been remodeled, along with a green room for performers waiting to go on stage and several VIP lounges.

Opaque tabletops now light up those spaces.

There’s new flooring in the entry and at the two bars, which have also received visual upgrades.

Tucked along the far side of the room, the kitchen — which sells tacos, nachos, burritos and the like during shows — was overhauled with shiny new stove cook tops and other equipment.

There are also video screens, like everywhere.

One serves as the backdrop for the entirety of the stage. It’s flanked by two others up front.

“There’s two over there,” Valdivia says.

“And all the pillars.”

There are nearly 300 LED screens in total placed throughout the room.

Other changes are less noticeable and more logistical.

The sound and lighting systems were upgraded, so that all production work can be done in house. Which means the ballroom can now use its permanent stage. In the past, it had often set up a portable stage at the back of the room.

‘Fresno’s premiere event center’

The Rainbow Ballroom started its life as The Fresno Natatorium in 1918. The three-story, indoor-swimming complex had a high-dive platform, spring boards and trapeze rings set over the pool for swimmers doing stunts. There were 165 dressing rooms, a roof-top garden and walls of windows pouring in natural light.

It was rechristened as the Rainbow Ballroom in 1924 and joined places such as the Marigold Ballroom and the Fresno and Californian hotels as one of the dozens of places in where groups would set up dances.

On a single Sunday in 1927, The Bee’s “Activities and Doings of Fresno Lodges” page reported nine upcoming dances at the Rainbow . On good nights, according to reports, there could be 1,000 couples out on the dance floor.

The Rainbow became a stopping point for big-name acts like Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington as they traveled from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Through the ’40s big-band era there was music at the venue almost every week.

Under the management of Wally Johnson, rock music became the norm and the Rainbow became part of the California touring circuit in the late 1960s and ’70s, hosting bands such as Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Carlos Santana Blues Band, Ike and Tina Turner Revue and Fleetwood Mac.

Leo Valdivia began renting space at the Rainbow and it became known for weekly dances, which were promoted through his company, Valdivia Enterprises, and often featured performers from Mexico.

For a time in the 1990s, the ballroom returned to hosting rock music and it seems like the Rainbow might serve as a viable replacement for the nearby Wilson Theatre, bringing in mid-sized touring acts that were too popular to play the clubs, but not quite arena ready.

The Wilson Theatre in 1996 was bought by, and converted into, Cornerstone Church .

The promotions company Goldenvoice inked a deal to bring Social Distortion to the Rainbow Ballroom the following year. It also brought Beck, The Offspring and No Doubt. The Smith’s front man, Morrissey, played the Ballroom in 1999.

In more recent years, the Rainbow has become a staging ground for regional Mexican bands as they gain more widespread popularity . Banda MS, for example, was playing the ballroom before the group sold out a show at The Big Fresno Fair and well before it ever landed gigs at the Save Mart Center.

And while the venue has continued to host other genres of music — from rappers like Tyler the Creator and Snoop Dogg to metal bands Slipknot, Ghost and Halestorm — those were done as outside promoters essentially renting the room, Valdivia says.

The face-lift allows him to court promoters like Live Nation , but also aggressively pursue a variety of artists on his own. “My vision is, I want to promote those shows now.”

The opportunity is there.

The Rainbow Ballroom is unique in it’s capacity (1,800 people) and ability to operate as an all-ages venue. Its closest competitors, Warnors Theatre and Saroyan Theatre, are both larger, at 2,100 and 2,350 seats, respectively.

The Tower Theatre is smaller at 730 seats.

None have a dance floor.

All of this makes the Rainbow ideal for the mid-sized touring acts that have historically passed on Fresno for other markets, Valdivia says.

“It’s perfect.”

The Rainbow was almost sold off

Of course, the attention Valdivia is putting into the venue feels like a change of heart.

Just three years ago the family put the Rainbow up for sale . The family also owned the Hardy’s Theatre on Van Ness Avenue downtown, which it also sold that year.

It was always the intention for Valdivia to take over the ballroom at some point, but he had gotten busy with other endeavors.

“At the time, I didn’t want to take on the challenge,” he says.

“I was just overwhelmed with things.”

But this was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when “not a lot of people wanted to buy a venue.”

By the time the industry started returning to business, Valdivia was in a different place and could see a new future for the Rainbow.

“To be the Rainbow Ballroom for 100 years,” he says, “that’s pretty significant.”

“If I’m gonna do something, I’m going to do it right.”

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