It's a little weird reviewing Milo Arts as a business since it's more artist housing than anything else, but it does also host shows both visual and musical, so there's that! It's not exactly a great music venue in terms of sound or space, but in spite of that it is a very charming place and an absolute blast to visit, definitely not to be missed as a unique, Columbus-y sort of place.
Milo Arts is housed in a huge structure that was once a public school but from the outside could almost be mistaken for the Edisons' place in Maniac Mansion. As something of an amateur antiquarian, I absolutely love how old and on-the-brink-of-decay this place looks. For all that it is pretty clean inside, though.
The place has a sort of bohemian commune feel to it, with various classrooms converted to artists' lofts and studios, and since it still retains a lot of the features that make it unmistakably a public school, coming here at night for a show also kind of feels like sneaking all your friends into your old school and throwing a party after the janitors have gone home.
It's not a very great venue, sure, but it's a hell of a place regardless. With the new addition of temporary liquor licenses and proceeds-to-charity national band gigs, this is the semi-underground place to keep tabs on.
I wonder if they throw a Halloween party in that huge old school... read more