Baqara Coliseum celebrates Grand Reopening after renovations

The Baqara Coliseum in Newton recently underwent a face-lift to further open up the possibilities for events within the building.

The journey that has become Baqara started as an in-home floral shop called Shades of Nature but after a change in vision, it expanded into a venue in Runnells in 2015 under the name Baqara Reclaimed. The Baqara brand expanded once again in 2018 when the Websters acquired Baqara Coliseum, Baqara Skate and the Baqara Floral Lounge, all in Newton.

The conglomerate of businesses that fall under the Baqara label are operated by Yvette and Clint Webster.

“I worked retail floral for 15 years and trained to be manager and got to the point where I am like ‘This is silly. I can do this myself,’” Yvette Webster said. “We had kind of came up with the idea of a full-service venue after we got married. We just saw a need for it because we did everything ourselves.”

The Baqara Coliseum, which houses Baqara Skate, is a multi-purpose venue. Webster said the renovations were tailored to allow for bigger events to be held within the venue.

“Now we are going to start trying to do concerts, any kind of event you could want,” Webster said.

The venues the Websters run offer a place for people to have their weddings but it is unique in the way the couple offers almost everything you could possibly need for your big day, all in once place including bartenders, set-up, clean-up and wedding planning.

“So those things were all, at that time, was kind of unique,” Webster said of Baqara Reclaimed when it started in Runnells in 2015.

The Baqara Coliseum recently hosted its grand reopening celebration after completing extensive renovations to the building to better suit their clients and to be able to open up which kind of clients can hold events there.

Webster said among the renovations was making a space behind the building where they can hold outdoor concerts and weddings among other activities. She added they re-did the floors inside of the venue and took out some walls to open up more space inside.

“Upstairs was a big room for storage so that’s all a brand new bridal suite ... One of the rooms we made into the grooms suite,” Webster said.

The hopes for Baqara Coliseum is to attract more people who want to hold larger events as it is a bigger space, and Webster said sometimes they have issues with their other venue being too small.

“Our other venue, the challenge we see there is it is not quite big enough,” Webster said. “We really want to start doing the big events like concerts and bigger corporate events and bigger weddings and stuff like that.”

With any innovation comes competition and Webster said she has seen new venues pop up and offer similar services or existing venues adding the services to their packages. But she isn’t worried about that.

“Every time another venue opens, it is really just more motivation,” Webster said.

Since the Baqara brand launched the venues have hosted 124 events at their locations, served 22,000 cans of beer, have made 1,617 boutonnières and 1,447 corsages. These statistics to show they go the extra mile to make your day perfect in any way they can.

“We are new to town, but we are here to stay. I would say the coliseum is for everyone ... It is meant to be shared it is a really cool old building and now that it is all remodeled we just want everyone to enjoy it,” Webster said.

To learn more, find Baqara on Facebook or contact the Websters to schedule a tour.

Contact Dustin Teays at 641-792-3121 ext. 6533 or dteays@newtondailynews.com