The posters made more money than the shows.
That's not a knock on the bands. It's the actual story of how Kilby Court survived its early years. Kilby couldn't survive on ticket sales alone. As an all-ages venue with no liquor license, the math never quite worked. Until Leia Bell started making posters.
The Workshop, the Screen, the Wall
Bell was co-owner of Kilby Court alongside her husband Phil Sherburne, who founded the venue in 1999. But her real contribution was visual. Working out of Sherburne's workshop, Bell hand-crafted screen-printed fliers with a distinctive colorful, cartoon-like style. She plastered them across Salt Lake City for upcoming shows. A 2002 poster for Mates of State, Currituck County, and Redd Tape became one of her early standouts.
In Sherburne's words
"Her posters made way more than the shows did." Not a figure of speech. Bell's artwork kept the venue financially afloat for several years.
Signed & Numbered
She and Sherburne also co-owned Signed & Numbered, a local frame shop and gallery that gave the work a proper home. The posters weren't a side hustle. They were the business model — and the gallery made that explicit.
Gigposters.com
When the art landed on gigposters.com, the audience went national. Bell's work gained international recognition on a platform where collectors and concert-goers traded posters like currency. The SLC poster scene got noticed because Bell's work made it impossible not to notice.
After 2008
Bell left when she and Sherburne sold Kilby to Will Sartain and Lance Saunders on January 1, 2008. She relocated to the Midwest. Erin and Nick Potter (Potter Press) inherited the art director role and kept the lo-fi screen-printing tradition going — directing fans to gigposters.com to find their expanding catalog.
The music came and went. The posters lasted.
Were you ever lucky enough to grab one of Bell's posters off the wall?
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