After receiving complaints from the Town of Mansfield and months of closure at their official location, indie DIY music venue The Dog P0und has begun transitioning to a new location.
The Storrs-based collective first began operation in August of 2024, hosting their first show for move-in day of that semester. Beginning in October of 2025, however, the organization began to see pressure from the Town of Mansfield calling for the venue’s closure. The Dog P0und’s primary location has been inactive since the end of the fall semester.
The Dog P0und had begun receiving communication from the University of Connecticut, the Town of Mansfield and the venue’s landlord in request that the organization stop hosting events at their current location, according to founding member Alexa Udell. While the organization had received noise complaints in the past, October was when the group started to see this specific request, Udell said.
“For me, saying that really can’t be separated from the context that our previous spot was on, like, Frat Row,” Udell said, referring to a neighborhood known for including fraternity houses. “So, it was next to a ton of houses that were all doing the same thing, and we were the only house that faced that.”
Udell is a second-year master’s of public policy student at UConn. Udell is also a primary organizer for The Dog P0und and does most of the group’s booking, along with making flyers, operating the social media, working sound equipment and making many of The Dog P0und’s “big picture” decisions.
The Town of Mansfield was first to receive noise complaints about The Dog P0und, and later contacted UConn, according to Udell. The Dean of Students office notified The Dog P0und to expect a visit from the office to ask that the venue discontinue hosting music events.
Since the venue’s closure, The Dog P0und and its members have been looking for a new way for the organization to thrive. For Udell, the official location could never have been permanent.
“It’s inherently tenuous to be hosting music events at places like that, and even hosting DIY venues in general is very tenuous,” Udell said. “Even established locations, places that were intended to be a venue, sometimes go under. So, taking that into account, I knew that we would have to eventually be adapting.”
Without the ability to host events at their official location, Udell and the rest of the team at The Dog P0und needed to evolve. Current events hosted by The Dog P0und are now held at a separate location, while the organization itself now operates primarily as a booking agency.
“We’re really thankful for people for opening their home to us to allow us to host and do things there,” Udell said.
Udell and the rest of the team at The Dog P0und have found a venue in Vernon where they plan to begin hosting events again. To begin, Udell hopes to host smaller artists as opposed to the ones The Dog P0und hosted in Storrs, to try and keep the location to smaller crowds.
“It’s a lot of work to go and scout out venues and find people who are willing to let you host at their place,” Udell said. “But it’s really exciting when we’re able to get those things going through. I’m always looking for new places to host at, especially in Storrs just because that’s where we’ve been super strongly rooted.”
While The Dog P0und has begun expanding its operations, Udell hopes to remain connected to the UConn scene.
“It’s really important to us to emphasize the community building aspect of it, I feel like specifically in the queer community at UConn,” Udell said. “At UConn, The Dog P0und is very well-known, and it’s a very important space for people to be able to go out and have a nice night out without necessarily worrying about a lot of the considerations that you need to have when you’re going out as an openly queer person.”
For some in the Storrs music scene, The Dog P0und’s closure is more than just a venue shutting down. Eddie Dahill, the drummer for Connecticut-based band Ruby Leftstep, saw the organization as an important way of connecting with fans.
“The Dog P0und was a very important presence to us musically and then also socially, because our, I would say 60, 70% of our loyalist fans are all at UConn,” Dahill said.
Dahill noted that he had a personal connection to The Dog P0und. When the organization first moved locations at the start of the 2025 fall semester, Dahill helped set up the venue’s sound system and even secured discounts from his job at a music store. Additionally, Ruby Leftstep recorded their live album “TED” at this new location in October of this past year.
“It doesn’t need to be like this,” Dahill said. “You’re infinitely safer at The Dog P0und in a mosh pit than you are at a frat, you know, covering your drink the entire night.”
“Music will always go on,” Dahill said. “They hosted a show where they had shuttle services — like, music will find a way. They’ll find a way around the assholes that try and put it down. That’s the beauty of it, is that everybody wants it so bad that they’ll do anything to get it back.”