Kelsey Kaufmann took over ownership of Cactus Club in February 2020, one month before the pandemic shut it down. “We all thought it was going to be two weeks and it was two years,” she said.
Kaufmann had worked at the club for the past decade, starting as a bartender. Growing up in the northern suburbs of Milwaukee, she had been playing drums in bands since middle school and later toured with different acts like Cougar Den and Centipedes. While still performing, she graduated from UW-Milwaukee and went on to study water policy at its graduate school. At that same time, her work at Cactus Club continued to grow. She soon dropped out of graduate school and started working at the venue full-time, and in 2016, she began overseeing operations.
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When COVID hit, she and the club’s staff took the shutdown as an opportunity to expand Cactus Club’s programming. While the club continues to host concerts, the venue is now also used for book clubs, film screenings, makers markets, food pop-ups, queer karaoke and much more. Kaufmann also helped spearhead an effort to change city laws that prevented people under 21 from attending concerts where alcohol was served and helped raise roughly $20,000 for Milwaukee Freedom Fund and Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, selling Black Lives Matter yard signs.
“The club has broadened its lens … to a community space,” says Kaufmann. “Sometimes people think of it as a pivot, and it’s not. … I never want it to seem like we’re less of a punk club because we do [for example], a vegan pop-up or a reggaeton show. To me, they reaffirm one another.”
Part of that broadening includes ensuring that the space is a safe and welcoming place for people across all identities. Kaufmann’s latest effort is launching a nonprofit called Cactus+, which will promote arts education, and to begin a major fundraising campaign to improve Cactus Club’s accessibility, by adding a ramp to the front door, enlarging the bathroom and more.
“We want a space that people feel welcome and comfortable accessing and participating in,” Kaufmann says. “Having a social space to meet other people that have similar creative practices or aspirations, that to me is the most exciting.”
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