My Sister’s House has quickly become an essential hub for Orlando’s DIY music scene, giving local and touring artists a stage to perform on without the pressure of a more traditional venue. Founded by Jimmy Mura in February of 2026, the nonprofit venue has already navigated one major relocation to Boardwalk Bowl on Colonial from its original location at 750 S. Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando, and has moved yet again just down the street to a new, bigger home at 9816 E Colonial Drive scheduled to open on Halloween!
With a packed show calendar spanning multiple music genres and even comedy, improv and theater, My Sister’s House is filling the gap for Orlando’s underground scene with its impressive sound and light system, and a dedicated volunteer staff handling all of the logistics, production, engineering, lighting and even event photography. Orlando Weekly talked to Mura at this crucial juncture in the young venue’s growth.
If you want to peek at My Sister’s House 3.0 before it’s officially opens, you’ll have a chance this weekend. My Sister’s Halloween Party is the unofficial debut of the new space, featuring local bands Mirror Parts, Orange Blossom Trail, Paracosm, Default Friends and Quinn & the Cards perform songs from Weezer, My Bloody Valentine, Turnstile, Joyce Manor, and Panic! At the Disco as well as a DJ set from Thomas Hayden of The Emo Party from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. With games, prizes, and a costume contest, it’s a terrifyingly good way to spend your Halloween night. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door.
You’re now settled into a new and hopefully permanent location for My Sister’s House. What were you looking for in a new space?
The initial thing was we needed to find a place we could afford was the truth of the matter. We have a situation where we’re extremely adaptable. Even in the old Boardwalk Bowl space. I shared a picture recently where people could see what that space looked like before we put everything in there. Essentially we have a system that we know how to make any room become My Sister’s House, which we can make work anywhere. But we needed to find an appropriate place that was affordable, was the number one thing. And then expanded beyond that was safety, followed by proximity to our original location because we wanted to stay close to where people were familiar with us already.
We looked at a lot of options and the one we found is luckily just so close to Boardwalk Bowl and it’s really a lovely space. We have to make a couple changes to it to get it ready in time.
For people who have maybe only gone to one show at one location, could you walk us through your move from the first location to Boardwalk and then through your efforts to keep putting on shows after leaving Boardwalk for this new location?
When we first started, we got this simple lease in a business park in Winter Park, and it was supposed to be this thing where we’d host shows every once in a while, like a couple times a month. We had some great art in there and a great stage and everything, and we figured this will be a nice thing to do every once in a while. The rent was low, so it would support it. But right away, even our grand opening sold out and that was like our introduction to the scene, right? So right away, the demand was higher than we expected. I think by the third week, we had moved from two shows a week to like six. The bands were just dying to play.
By the time we left there, we were open every single night. And that volume was just a lot for that business park and just was not what everyone originally anticipated. So they wanted us out of there and it was fair. We moved to Boardwalk Bowl, temporarily as sort of a holdover space. It was working there for a while, so we decided like, hey, let’s stick around. But similarly, the audience keeps growing. People kept coming, and Boardwalk Bowl was similarly overwhelmed by the amount of people and stuff crowding their entrances and exits and stuff like that, and they wanted us to move. We said, “No hard feelings,” and that’s where it was. When we left the original space, we had that full calendar. Our last show was March 28 and then we popped up in the new space [at Boardwalk] on April 1 and with very little time in between. We’re good at making it work.
My Sister’s House has collaborated with local artists to create murals that make the venue creative and visually appealing. Who are some of the artists involved?
One of the unique things about our venue is that, we’re this nonprofit space not just for music, but for art in all different forms, mostly alternative art here in Orlando, and we have this store portion that sells materials from local creators and local artists that you would typically see at an arts fair or a craft fair. We went to a bunch of those in the weeks leading up to our original opening, and partnered with a bunch of artists that sell either prints or clothing or interesting materials or books that we would put into our store on a consignment basis.
Then we had all of this blank [wall] space, and we reached out to a couple of them and said, “Hey, would you be interested in creating murals for the space in conjunction with us selling your stuff in the store?” A couple of them said, yes, and they became quick friends of the venue, and we collaborated with them
When we were prepping the original space, which basically looked like a dentist’s office, all the way to the time we opened, these artists were just painting there 24/7 for two weeks straight. Then when we moved to Boardwalk Bowl, we lost those original murals. We took photos of them and we have print versions of them now, but the originals are gone sadly. We invited everyone back to do a new set of murals on canvas or on vinyl so that we could move the vinyl sheets to wherever we decide to go next. So now the actual originals get to travel with us.
What are some of the aspects of this new location that you’re more excited about?
I am extremely excited about the size being a little bit bigger. It’s a really similar layout and shape. It gives us a little bit more room to create a proper section for things like the ticketing, and we’re going to have a proper beer and wine bar. The store section is going to be a little bit larger with more room for the displays and stuff like that. That way the people in the actual show section are not knocking into the store displays and that kind of thing.
Tell us about your fundraising campaign?
We’re doing the typical asking for donations, doing a GoFundMe, that sort of public, getting our audience behind it sort of thing. The next step that we’re going to be working on is, we have this idea for an [art] piece that we want to do. We have all these keys that hang from the ceiling, and every single one of them is like a volunteer’s name who’s worked with us or every single band that plays gets a key and we hang those keys from the ceiling. We want to do an art piece where our logo would be made up of a bunch of little keys. Depending on the size of the key, we’re going to get names put on them and we want to sell those as a sort of sponsorship opportunity.
Basically, the key to our success is our patrons. We’re going to offer that to local businesses and ask if they want to be ground-level patrons or supporters of this project and honor those contributions in a beautiful art piece but also the donations to move forward, which we’re excited about. When it comes to events, I know there are a lot of things people want to do. We want to start doing our own maker faire or creative market. We also want to do a silent auction, and there’s probably gonna be karaoke and open mics and then specific shows or themed nights. We want to do some more industry nights, too. We want to host a musician speed-dating night. It’s not actually speed-dating, it’s about getting people who want to be in bands to meet each other, meet new musicians and see who might collaborate well. We also want to offer classes and other things and offer those at a really affordable rate with industry professionals and that sort of thing.
“We’ve been working so hard in the space we are a bit behind but we have some great ideas we will be launching next week but rent is due on the first and we are in need.
You’re throwing a soft-opening My Sister’s Halloween Party on Saturday night at the new location. …
The amount that these volunteers have poured in this space just in the last week to get it ready for the preview show we have on Halloween is unbelievable. We have been firing on all cylinders and it’s amazing to see so many people believe in this project and when everyone else connects with this spot, they’re going to be blown away.”
