PHOTO COURTESY JOHN’S ECHO

For those in recovery, live music can be a challenging environment.

Bars and vendors surround concertgoers — and stages and walkways are ringed with ads for alcohol. Tight crowds often mean someone standing inches away has a beer in hand. At rowdier shows, alcohol can be spilled or splashed.

The difference between enjoying a show and staying home can be as simple as finding a space to decompress. Fortunately, the nonprofit John’s Echo is working on a solution — and it’s already in place at one of the region’s most popular concert venues.

The organization, an extension of Jade Wellness Center, this summer established sober spaces at Stage AE, where visitors can take a break from the alcohol-forward environment and receive support — and, more important, a moment of calm. John’s Echo co-founder Dan Garrighan says spaces like these are key to enjoying life while avoiding drugs and alcohol.

“I’m a person in long-term recovery. When I stopped drinking, it was kind of, ‘change your people, places and things’ … You don’t go to places where you could be triggered without some support. In the beginning, you just don’t go.

“I definitely look back on those moments, and think, I had to push pause on a lot of things I enjoyed in life.”

Stage AE hosts shows in both an indoor and outdoor space, and the John’s Echo area alternates between them; when the show is outdoors, it’s tucked away inside (but accessible to all concertgoers), and when the show is inside, it moves to a quieter outdoor area. Both areas are “not next to anywhere you would order drinks,” Garrighan says.

At about half of the venue’s shows, representatives of John’s Echo — or the partnering nonprofit Sage’s Army, a recovery community organization based in Greensburg and Irwin — are on hand to offer an ear or word of support. The space is available, even if staff isn’t present, at all events; Garrighan says they’re hoping to staff the space more often in 2025.

Early review has been positive, they say, as individuals in need of a break have been finding and embracing the space. “We’ve received emails unprompted from people who went and said it was really breathtaking and heartwarming.”

Garrighan named the organization after his late brother John, a musician and former member of the longstanding Pittsburgh-based rock group The Berlin Project. He hopes that the model John’s Echo is establishing at Stage AE can be followed by concert venues throughout the city and beyond — and allow more people to embrace activities that they might have left behind.

“They can go in there with a little more confidence.”