Outdoor music venue CEO leads consistent growth for South Dakota arts scene
Next year, Levitt at the Falls will grow from an intimate band shell on a lawn to a 7,000-square-foot music venue, all from the tap of a wand in Nancy Halverson’s hand.
She has made it all look so effortless.
Halverson is the president and CEO of Levitt at the Falls, a nonprofit organization that provides outdoor live music to communities nationwide. Our Levitt has been in town since 2019, at once an inviting grassy knoll right at the entrance of Phillips to the Falls, where passersby and tourists and neighborhood businesses hear the echoing of music outside and, before they know it, have swayed on the lawn until the last song at sunset.
And it likely wasn’t even a genre they would’ve liked.
That’s the grace of Halverson, an unassuming businesswoman who all year long stumps across the city and region to raise money so she can book bands and residents can enjoy free concerts on warm summer nights.
And many of them are up-and-coming performers — diverse in their age, nationality, style and sound. It’s like surprise and delight at the Levitt, with food and drink and camaraderie.
That’s all Halverson, but she doesn’t even care whether you know that. She just wants you to come on by and hang out in her backyard.
“All I know is that she wants to make a difference,” says Laura Mullen, director of volunteer engagement at the Levitt. “And she does. We could not ask for a better leader than Nancy.”
A return to Sioux Falls for the arts
Halverson and her husband, Bruce, first lived in Sioux Falls from 2000 to 2006, when Bruce was president at Augustana University (Augustana College at the time).
During those few years, Nancy Halverson was the hostess with the mostest.
“As ‘first lady,’ I had thousands of people through my house,” she said.
But she loved it. With a background in musical theater and as a singer in many bands, she welcomed the fellowship that would later serve her future career at the Levitt.
After her husband’s tenure at Augie, the couple and their son moved to South Carolina for a bit, where Nancy Halverson ran a children’s museum before they returned to Sioux Falls to be closer to family.
It was then that a dear friend of Halverson’s, former South Dakota politician and local photographer Tom Dempster, tapped her to run the Levitt. The concept to open one here was his idea, Halverson says.
“I remember when we lived here before, I found that area of town as a lost opportunity,” she says of the burgeoning Phillips to the Falls today. Now there’s apartments, restaurants and commercial spaces at Cascade at Falls Park, west of the Levitt, and a hotel, more restaurants and office spaces at The Steel District, just north of the band shell. The River Greenway project and Lloyd Landing continue to develop, and Jacobsen Plaza in the same area is underway.
Lloyd Companies, who owns the nearby Steel District and Lumber Exchange, once credited the Levitt as the reason they were able to even dream up the expansion, Halverson recalls.
“I just love that the arts have been such a big part of this community growth,” she says.
Year-round programming includes camps, mixers, volunteering
At the jump, Levitt at the Falls hosted 30 free summer concerts in its first year. It was a wild success. Then, the pandemic struck, and they had to get creative — Halverson’s signature move.
“Way back in 2019, Nancy had our staff sit down and create value statements that would help guide our decisions,” Mullen said. “With those guideposts, we were able to create and provide new programs that reached far beyond the concerts on the lawn.”
You think their summer is busy? That’s the party after all the work, the cold drink after the long day.
Today, their off-season programming includes professional development for musicians — like helping with taxes or Monday night mixers so musicians can get to know one another — summer camps for kids or volunteering at area nonprofits. They also put on “Levitt in your Neighborhood” concerts — like hosting performances in the parking lot of Good Samaritan Society for the residents or bringing musicians to perform at Sanford Cancer Center or Avera Behavioral Health.
It wasn’t enough for Halverson to invite thousands of guests to her — over 100,000 people showed up last year — so she brings “the healing power of music” to hundreds of them.
This is why the Levitt is growing — both physically around the bandshell and in the community today.
Three large naming gifts round out $5M expansion plan
Last month, Levitt at the Falls announced a breakthrough in its $5 million expansion campaign, confirming three large naming gifts that will support new office and programming spaces, a second stage, larger storage for equipment as well as dressing rooms and a green room for performers.
“The Sweetman Atrium,” the largest part of the expansion, will be named after Dick and Kathy Sweetman, who gifted to the Levitt via the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation. The “Lust Family Second Stage,” for additional educational programming, will be named on behalf of a gift from John and Jeanelle Lust.
The Dakota State University Foundation also served as a donor and will name future programming space, and any remaining funds will be used to purchase more lighting, sound and video equipment.
Construction will begin Sept. 1.
“The Levitt is an important part of our city,” said Sioux Falls Parks and Recreation director Don Kearney, who partners with Halverson, her board and her mighty staff of five. “We are excited to work with Levitt at the Falls to complete the expansion to the shell, and I look forward to seeing the new programming opportunities.”
How does she do it?
When the Argus Leader first met Halverson in her swanky office in December — located as of now inside the Gourley Building but soon at the bandshell once the expansion is complete — she excitedly pointed to her science-project-style poster board, nearly covered with thumbtacked pictures of bands she had already booked for this coming season, each under their scheduled performance date and with only a few opening slots remaining.
“The goal is a diverse audience, so I want as much diversity on stage as I can possibly get,” she says. “I am looking for artists who represent our community so that any child who comes to the stage can look up and see somebody who looks and sounds like them.
“That,” she emphasizes, “is how we will build community through music,” making a nod to the Levitt mission nationwide.
In all, there will be over 50 concerts this summer, every Thursday through Saturday, beginning May 23. The lineup will be announced this spring.
Halverson says to completely fill her loyal poster board — “I’m a visual person!” — she needs to always be building relationships with agents and navigating busy tour schedules of multiple bands at once. She looks for “great musicianship and clean entertainment.”
The Shaun Johnson Band is always a hit every summer, she says, as is Brulé and their annual Lakota music festival, All My Relatives. Halverson is planning a new festival this year with the ADA, featuring performers of all abilities, and a few other surprise shows.
When she’s not networking, Halverson is writing grants, booking hotels for the performers and food trucks for the lawn, writing annual reports, recruiting volunteers, drawing up brochures and maybe even knitting a sweater or two at home. But the ring of an agent or contributor is ever near.
“My goal is always that we should be the duck on top of the water,” she says. “Nobody should see our feet.”
But we as the music lovers are getting doused with her good graces, and we’re thankful for the duck.
“Though our Levitt board had high aspirations for sure, the Levitt today is 10 times as crazy successful as our wildest dreams,” says Dempster, who served on the board when Levitt shows first hit the stage. “So much of that success is because of Nancy. She herself is a super-star — insightful, passionate and utterly indomitable.
“When I go to the Levitt concerts, I often find myself choking back tears.”
