When Wonder Ballroom Says All Ages, They Mean All Ages

On April 10 of this year, the Wonder Ballroom opened its doors for an evening of live music from Nashville folksters, TopHouse. The show was typical of the diverse booking by Wonder’s team, endearing itself to the equally diverse group of concertgoers in attendance—a unique Portland music-going community comprised of a wide swath of ages and genre interests. A constant that separates larger Portland venues, and larger Oregon music venues as a whole, are the pesky 21-and-over barricades bifurcating minors from those drinking alcohol, as found at the Wonder, as well as the Crystal Ballroom, among others.

But on this past April night, so conditioned by the omnipresence of the Wonder’s longstanding barricade—perhaps better known by its colloquial designation as “The Moat”—the Wonder’s general