Downtown club owner Coco Rubio's new live music club, Sky City, is expected to open next month at the former location of The Mission at 1157 Broad St.

In developing the 400-person capacity venue, the owner of The Soul Bar is trying to fill a void left by the December closing of The Mission and the January 2007 closing of the Blue Horse Music Hall.

As his new bar and music hall prepares to open, the question arises: Can Augusta really become a regular stop for name-brand bands?

"Our thing has always been to make Augusta a viable place for bands to play. Having a venue like this we're going to find out," said Mr. Rubio, who began leasing the former Mission property earlier this year.

Mr. Rubio wants to see Sky City (a name he appropriated from the former downtown department store) play host to the kinds of bands that play well-known smaller venues around the Southeast such as Athens' 40 Watt and Georgia Theater and the Charleston, S.C., Music Farm.

Upcoming acts at those venues include Drive-By Truckers, Rilo Kiley, Sister Hazel, Less Than Jake, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Ghostface Killah and Ashes Divide.

But will nationally known bands play a venue the size of Sky City?

"Some of them would," said Marshall Lowe, the owner of All-In Entertainment, which books acts at 300- to 2,500-person venues throughout the Southeast. Mr. Lowe also owns the 990-seat Music Farm in Charleston.

Steve Hall, a promoter in Birmingham, Ala., who books bands in a dozen cities, said he has been talking to Mr. Rubio about bringing national and international acts to Sky City this summer. They are working with rock station WCHZ-FM (95.1) to attract the kind of mainstream acts heard on that station.

Mr. Rubio, whose partners in the venue include his brother Jayson and The Bee's Knees owner Eric Kinlaw, said he is working on a sound and lighting system that could cost about $50,000.

Being both the promoter and the venue provider will allow Mr. Rubio to avoid the expense of renting a theater and hiring personnel for an event. However, running a live-music venue is still a risky enterprise.

If too few people show up to see a big-name act, a promoter can end up owing the band thousands of dollars he didn't make.

"You have to have a love for the music. But the other part of it is the business part of picking the right bands (to draw an audience)," Mr. Rubio said.

Guarantees to national touring acts such as Drive-By Truckers or G. Love & Special Sauce can reach up to $10,000, Mr. Rubio said. If ticket sales do not cover the cost, he must pay the difference with proceeds from alcohol sales.

Mr. Rubio said he is aiming to keep tickets about $10, but said that some popular bands might command up to $25 to $50.