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Audrey Fix Schaefer

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The profile

Communications director of the Washington, D.C. venue company I.M.P., who ran communications for the National Independent Venue Association through the Save Our Stages campaign and the 2021 launch of the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant; NIVA's board president since June 2025.

Identity and role

Audrey Fix Schaefer is communications director of I.M.P. NIVA's own history of its founding lists her affiliation as "I.M.P./9:30 Club, Lincoln Theatre, The Anthem, Merriweather Post Pavilion." On June 23, 2025, at its conference in Milwaukee, the National Independent Venue Association named her president of its board, succeeding Andre Perry. NIVA's 2025–2026 board list gives her title as Head of Communications, I.M.P.

Biography / career arc

Schaefer's NIVA role dates from the association's founding in the spring of 2020. By the account in NIVA's backgrounder, dated March 18, 2021, she "was brought on board to run communications" before the group elected its first board; its formation as a 501(c)(6) trade association was announced on April 9, 2020, with Dayna Frank of First Avenue as president. In April 2021 NIVA identified her as a board member and communications director. She later served as vice president and communications director before becoming board president in 2025. Announcing her election, NIVA executive director Stephen Parker credited "the tireless work she has led since our founding."

Pandemic-relief / PPP-EIDL role

NIVA ran the #SaveOurStages campaign for federal aid to independent venues. The Save Our Stages Act, sponsored by Senators Amy Klobuchar and John Cornyn, became law on December 27, 2020, in the second COVID-19 relief package and created the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program. Klobuchar's office put the relief at $15 billion at signing; NIVA's 2025 materials describe a $16.25 billion program.

Schaefer was NIVA's public voice when the program stumbled at launch. The SBA opened its SVOG application portal at noon on April 8, 2021, and suspended it after technical failures; the agency said it had accepted no applications and distributed no money. NPR quoted Schaefer, as NIVA's communications director: "We all want the SBA to be successful in providing desperately needed emergency relief ASAP." NIVA's April 23 statement, welcoming the SBA's plan to reopen the portal the next day, quoted her again: "Simply put, this is emergency relief that can't come too soon. Every single day that passes small business are receiving eviction notices, all the while $16 billion has been waiting for them." The statement listed her as NIVA's media contact.

The SBA ran SVOG under Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, confirmed in March 2021, with Matthew Stevens as program director.

No lawsuit, enforcement action or relief-program finding naming Schaefer appears in the court records or agency releases we hold.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

In her statement on taking the post she listed NIVA's achievements as "the $16 billion Save Our Stages bill" and "the effort to protect fans from predatory ticket scalpers," and quoted Frank's pandemic line: "First we survive, then we thrive." At the June 2025 conference she was scheduled for a fireside chat on ticket scalping, "Battling Scalping Goes To Washington, D.C.," with Antonio Nunes, legislative director to D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen.

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