Levitt at the Falls Has a Winter Season Now: What's Happening Inside the New Sweetman Atrium

"We'd have to go up, and we didn't design for that," Levitt at the Falls president and CEO Nancy Halverson told SiouxFalls.Business when the Sweetman Atrium opened on Oct. 8. The 7,000-square-foot addition used up the last open land on the Levitt site.

Since it opened in 2019, the shell on North Phillips Avenue has been a summer place. You brought a lawn chair, and the concerts were free. The atrium changes the calendar, but the free summer lawn shows are still the point. The paid winter shows going on indoors are partly there to keep those summer concerts free.

What went onto the last open ground

The atrium holds the DSU Community Room, the Lust Family Second Stage, the Paulson Family Greenroom for artists, a dressing room, six offices and two storage rooms. Co-op Architecture designed it, Beck & Hofer Construction built it, and the total cost will be about $5.6 million. Halverson said the building opened without debt.

Before this, Levitt's staff worked several blocks away. Heavy sound equipment often had to be hauled back and forth to the shell, and musicians getting ready for a show had a small space to work with. The staff moved into the atrium about two weeks before the grand opening. Halverson told SiouxFalls.Business they designed it around what years of running the shell had taught them, including one gap that had bothered them. The stage had a ramp in front but none backstage. "That may be ADA (accessible,) but it's not welcoming," she said.

Why the indoor shows cost money

Summer is still the main event. Halverson told SiouxFalls.Business the 2026 summer season drew more than 130,000 people to 45 concerts. Weather canceled five of the 50 scheduled dates. A total of 225 volunteers logged 5,140 hours. Livestreams, available for 24 hours after each show, drew 149,122 viewers on six continents.

None of that charges admission, so it has to be paid for somehow. Halverson said part of the off-season goes to researching and booking acts and to finding more than $1.3 million in sponsorships. The new indoor series, called Levitt UpClose, adds ticket sales to that effort. On the Levitt UpClose page, the venue says every ticket supports the free summer concert series, and that the charge for some UpClose events "helps us continue providing all of our regular programming free of charge."

So when you buy a $35 ticket on a cold November night, Levitt says that ticket supports the free summer series. The concerts happen indoors in the DSU Community Room.

The winter calendar so far

As of mid-October, here's what Levitt's events list shows in the atrium through the holidays:

The Two Tracks are an Americana-folk rock quartet from Sheridan, Wyoming, and Levitt bills the night as its first UpClose performance. Dec. 19 is the series' first holiday show. Fellowship Jazz Center is local, and SiouxFalls.Business had reported that Levitt staff were in talks with the jazz center about atrium performances, so this date makes that official. Those same Oct. 8 reports said Levitt was also talking with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. No symphony date appears on the published schedule yet.

The free nights in between

The free events on the calendar come from the second half of the atrium's purpose. Halverson told SiouxFalls.Business the addition followed a city report on the arts, which found that artists needed affordable places to work and take chances. Before the atrium, Levitt had been renting space around town for that work. "Now, we're bringing everything we do mission-wise under our roof," she said.

The clearest example is the Artist Speaker Series run by The Watering Can. It meets the second Tuesday of each month from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the DSU Community Room. It's free, you don't need to register, and it streams on Facebook Live starting at 7 p.m. The sessions cover the business side of making art, like marketing and client connections. Halverson described them as conversations about things like "how to do taxes, how to market your show."

The Nov. 10 session is a panel of grant recipients: Brian Bonde, Edwin Galindo, Mecca Rutherford and Xavier Pastrano. They'll talk about applying for grants and how it went for them. The series schedule skips December and picks up again in the new year:

• Jan. 12, 2027: "Using Opportunities to Talk About Your Art," with Dave Holly
• Feb. 9, 2027: "Business Planning for the Artist," with Sadie Swier and Myriam Medina
• Mar. 9, 2027: "Social Media Strategies for Artists," with Nicole David
• Apr. 13 and May 11, 2027: "Bringing Your Art to the Community" and "Phone Camera Skills & Creative Effects"

The atrium has also been booked for some of Mayor Christine Erickson's public listening sessions. The Nov. 12 economic development session is one of them, a city rental rather than Levitt's own programming.

Going to a show: how it works

Levitt's UpClose FAQ covers these details for indoor shows.

1. Use the west entrance on Phillips Avenue. The address is 504 N Phillips Avenue.
2. Park after 6 p.m. behind the Levitt Shell or in the CHN Industries lot at Phillips Avenue and 6th Street. Parking is first come, first served, and the Levitt lot has limited ADA spaces.
3. Doors open an hour before the music. Seating is general admission and first-come, first-served unless an event page says otherwise.
4. Leave outside food, drinks and large bags at home or in the car. A smaller concession stand runs inside the atrium, and JJ's Wine, Spirits, & Cigars sells adult beverages on site.
5. Buy tickets through levittsiouxfalls.org. Click the blue "Buy Tickets" button on the event page. Bloomerang is Levitt's official ticketing platform, and the listed price is all-in, with sales tax and processing fees included. Levitt strongly discourages buying from third-party resellers and suggests going straight to its site rather than searching for shows. Questions about tickets you've already bought go to (605) 271-1560.

On the free speaker nights, you can just show up. There's no registration and no ticket.

If you're thinking about booking the space yourself, Levitt's rental page currently describes renting the Levitt Shell for free, public events by nonprofit and for-profit groups. It doesn't list rental terms for the atrium. Rental questions go to operations manager Jeff Venekamp at 605-271-1854.

What comes next for the off-season

Levitt is only eight years old, and this is the first winter it has had a building of its own to program. Halverson said part of the off-season will go to researching musical groups, booking shows and finding more than $1.3 million in sponsorships, while the atrium hosts its own indoor calendar. As of mid-October, the listings run from The Two Tracks on Nov. 6 to the Jazzy Christmas show on Dec. 19, then speaker nights through May 2027. Schedules change, so check levittsiouxfalls.org for the latest before you head downtown.

Part of knowing Sioux Falls is knowing which local spots now stay open all year. If you're weighing whether being near downtown spots like Levitt at the Falls should shape your next move, Berberich Real Estate Group is happy to talk it through with you. Schedule a consultation, and we'll look at what's near the parts of Sioux Falls you're considering.