Butler University’s flagship concert hall and one of the defining rooms in Indianapolis — 2,148 seats, opened in 1963, and unmistakable from the outside for its exposed concrete slabs.
Quick Facts
- Where: 4602 Sunset Avenue, Indianapolis (Butler University campus)
- Music: Orchestras, national touring artists, Broadway, and the Jordan College of the Arts season
- Live music: Year-round, seated. All ages
- Website: butlerartscenter.org
What to Expect
Co-designed by the Indianapolis architect Evans Woollen III with John M. Johansen and opened in October 1963, Clowes is a Brutalist building that has aged into being a landmark rather than an argument. Inside it is a proper concert hall: everybody seated, sightlines that work, and a room built when acoustics were the whole point.
It anchors the Butler Arts & Events Center, whose venues between them draw more than 300,000 people a year. If a touring orchestra, a Broadway run or a legacy act is playing Indianapolis in a seated room, this is often where.
Also on campus: the Schrott Center for the Arts at 475 seats and Shelton Auditorium at nearly 400, plus the 135-seat Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall and the Lilly Hall Studio Theatre. Check which room your ticket is for — they are not all in the same building.
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