The state of sheffield clubbing

[dimitrysoul]

Flyering is one of the biggest contributors to the piles of litter that simply end up on our city streets. Despite discussions with various night clubs, flyering, and associated illegal fly posting (mostly undertaken by students), has continued. Millions of pounds has been spent on transfoming the heart of the city, and yet at times the streets and pavements are at risk of ending up looking like a refuse tip.

 

Despite the discussions with the industry, the problems with flyering and fly posting continued. The more responsible organisations looked to other means of promoting, but called foul play when other, less responsible organisations, took advantage of their co-operation with the council. Faced with public demand to keep our city centre streets cleaner, the council duly adopted new legislation specifically designed to control flyering.

 

As goldenfleece points out, flyering is now more a question of public nuisance, and marketing of events does indeed need to develop along the lines of electronic communication.

 

Any chance of actually discussing the billboard point. Billboard advertising will certainly reduce the amount of flyers I get produced (and I guess other promoters too) . But I wont be chucked over a barrel by the Council's chosen partner for postering in the city. Its obscene the amount of cash that they ask to do the job. They (Space) may reply that it is the council that charge them for the space provided , in which case the 'untidy streets' issue drops back on council's desk. Charge less for the advertising space>Promoters get charged less for advertising (legally) in the city > Therefore there is less need for flyers on the city's footpaths...its not rocket science is it?

 

Btw redrobbo, you side stepped Green's comment like a politician.

[discodown]

Lots of points to answer. I'll try my best to do so.

 

The council are not club entrepreneurs or promoters. If, as you contend, the city needs more night life - then it's up to the providers of the club scene to meet the demand, not the council.

Agreed they aren't. But what they can do is allow some more purpose built venues or allow existing empty buildings to be converted to smaller and medium sized venues (say up to about 500 capacity max)

 

You have deliberately misquoted me. In previous threads i've suggested that promoters are to blame for not bringing big name dj's in because of the problems they have promoting events effectively. For all your innocence and wide eyed 'don't blame us' attitude the council ultimately have to take some responsibility for the amount of venues in this city if not them then who else?

 

Absolutely tony and redrobbo. If nothing else, as a rock/metal fan, I have ONE venue really, and that's one I despise, you, discodown, have half a dozen ....... sheesh .........

Is that right? In a city this size you feel you only really have one viable choice for a night out featuring the music you want to listen to? And that doesn't make you angry? If there were enough venues then maybe you could do something about that. To be fair there are a few one off nights that cater for you in various venues.

 

On other threads, discodown acknowledges that the lack of clubbing venues in the city is the responsibility of the promoters!

 

Here is a discussion between bigbear and discodown.....

 

as in, the Earl is also no longer a suitable venue for underground events.

 

with Fez and Earl gone, not many other venues around that size are around any longer in sheffield.

 

fact: 4x4 bassline (speedgarage) is the only genre that generates reliable revenue weekly for operators, and is not seasonal.

 

fact: money talks...

 

sad but true. there aren't enough good venues in sheff anyway and this means that another one is taken over.

 

i know everyone is dissappointed but it'll get better

 

So discodown, what's the council got to do with both the Earl and Fez closing down? According to you, it's all down to these venues being "taken over".

 

Here's another quote by discodown......

 

pinup pretty much picked up the scene after bed closed and i have had some amazing nights in there. my 3 top nights were seamus haji, mync project and wes. pinup was a rare thing a club that felt like a party week in week out. so to the pinup crew i say thankyou and i hope you secure a new venue and don't just let the night die because it would be a terrible shame if it did.

 

urban gorilla is probably the best night in sheffield and has been for about 2 years. it embodies what good clubbing should be about and its desparately sad they now need to find a new home.

 

scuba was one of the best nights of its type for a long time, they brought some amazing djs to sheffield and inspired fierce loyalty to its clubbers. sheffield is poorer that it is no longer running.

 

overall the fez was a superb club that provided a lot of good times and allowed promoters the opportunity to try something different, i know that the futre funk and UTI boys will be devastated as will most clubbers.

 

So, pinup closed, as did scuba - but not because the council didn't provide enough sites for clubbers, but simply because the promoters stopped promoting them!

 

The same applies to fez closing - which discodown acknowledges in the above quote was entirely due to the promoters - and not the council.

 

The ever changing club scene in Sheffield has got nothing to do with the council, but everything to do with the promoters - as discodown himself acknowledges. Maybe discodown is having a mental block when he forgets what he's had to say on other threads.

And you've misquoted me again. I'm not saying the council should promote nights i'm simply saying there aren't enough good venues in the city. It shouldn't matter that we've lost 3 venues this weekend, there should be enough venues to pick up the slack but there isn't. DQ can only do so much, i'll be surprised if plug take any nights because i was under the impression they wanted all their nights in house. So where can these nights go? I realise the council don't give a crap but 18-30 year olds pay council tax too.

 

I could go on and on but i'm a bit busy so i'll return to this later. In the meantime feel free to continue!

[CrookesLad]

has Pravda closed?

[green]

 

DQ can only do so much, i'll be surprised if plug take any nights because i was under the impression they wanted all their nights in house. So where can these nights go?

 

 

Disco -- common misconcepion that all our nights are in-house, this is however incorrect. Planet Zogg / Uprising / Metropolis / Ape / Reflective are all external promotions.

[dj4321]

going back to the original post of the state of Sheffield clubbing. Sheffield clubbing has been on the demise since the past 3 years. there may have been a lot of small underground nights, a side from UG; even the big corporate nights such as Gatecrasher has opted to do the commercial night as this reflects the main stream public today. There is not many quality nights in Sheffield regardless of music criteria because there is no media representation. Sheffield has no magazine, radio station or broadcast that focuses solely on Sheffield talent or the people of Sheffield. Where there is no roots there is no growth. (a famous quote of Marcus Garvey)

Club promoters, djs, night club owners and bars need to work together as there is plenty of clubbers for everyone. years ago this happened in Leeds and now has a very healthy club scene. its the only way forward instead of negativity that has been prominent in Sheffield for a long time.

[ERGO]

 

So, pinup closed, as did scuba - but not because the council didn't provide enough sites for clubbers, but simply because the promoters stopped promoting them!

 

The same applies to fez closing - which discodown acknowledges in the above quote was entirely due to the promoters - and not the council.

 

.

 

 

Didnt realised we had "closed" or even "stopped promoting"

 

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=146720

 

As for the Fez closing....it hasn't closed...it just got bought over.

 

Yeah its a shame and has put many promoters (ourselves included) but I'd like to think that we will soldier on...find a new venue and puut on more parties for likeminded people.

 

peace

[dj4321]

Didnt realised we had "closed" or even "stopped promoting"

 

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=146720

 

As for the Fez closing....it hasn't closed...it just got bought over.

 

Yeah its a shame and has put many promoters (ourselves included) but I'd like to think that we will soldier on...find a new venue and puut on more parties for likeminded people.

 

peace

 

The deal has not gone through legally yet. i would wait and see first as there may be a twist to the tale.

[ERGO]

I take your point mate and have actually considered this but all eventualities need to be taken into account.

[ERGO]

Disco --- If you knew the history of Plug, you would know that the council played a major part of ensuring we were not a casualty of the development of the Moor, and that we were a part of it. We are forever eternally grateful for that.

 

There are many problems within the late night entertainment industry at the moment. The industry has changed hugely over the last 7 years. No longer will people pay in droves for big djs (who incidently still wish to charge big payments!) and no longer do we have an influx of 18 year olds who want to hear the kind of alternative music that Plug/Razor/UG play. Most kids are now brought up on MTV/Kerrang etc, and its not very cool to want to listen to the kind of music your parents raved to! Venues need to adapt to the changes. At Plug we purposely saw the industry moving to move live music, and adapted our extension plans last year (from .zero to plug) to cater for this market. If we hadnt we most definately would have had a for sale sign above our heads this year. Fez/Pravda/Earl have consistently tried like ourselves to cater for the more discerning clubber, utilising external promoters whom fondly cater well for their own specific genres, but unfortunately if a promoter has a bad night, he loses a signifantly smaller amount of money than a venue does - which still has its huge overheads of rent/rates/staff etc.

 

The better promoters in Sheffield understand these difficulties, but others have no idea and think that venues are trying to rob them when they tell them the hire charges involved if they want to run a night. If a venue is charging cheap rent, more often than not the facilities then will suffer, till you get to the point where people stop going, promoters are fed up, and then lo and behold it closes down again! There are many venues in this fine city that have gone this way, and no doubt will again.

 

It is easy to point blame at the council or police when these situations happen, but maybe we should all look closer to home.

 

If we had 5 or 6 new venues in the city, and we had, for example, chibuku, tribal sessions, fabric all here, do you truly think that they would all still be around 1 year later?!?

 

I personally would like to see a few more DQ bars and Frog & Parrots where smaller promoters can start off new nights....but we need to convert the public to support them. Which we both know, isnt easy!

 

 

I could not agree more especially the point about getting the public to suuport all the independent venues...clubs and bars alike.

[Tuffty]

hmm, its all the councils fault?

 

yes and no-

 

The situation at pravda/fez/earl, is not directly linked to the council. but they do have significant responsibility for the state of sheffield nightlife in general and i do think that they undervalue the importance of a diverse and vibrant nightime economy.

 

prices for public entertainment licenses here are significantly greater than in comparable cities (ever wondered why leeds has more dedicated live music venues?)

 

the council are particularly keen on following up complaints of noise polloution, yet continue to give planning permission for city centre living appartments in unsuitable locations.

 

also due to lax planning restrictions, land in the centre is far more profitable as student accomadation than it could ever be with a club (anyone remember the music factory/bed?) (anyone remember the historically important bit, 'mysteriously' and 'accidently' burning down during redevelopment?)

 

red tape and buereacracy in general continue to stiffle enterprise and discourage new players in the industry.

 

the issue of one company having a monopoly over billboard advertising is also an important one, that again raises the level of investment required to enter the market.

 

i believe that there also needs to be more transparency in the decision making process of the council, they need to be more accountable for the decisions they take and there needs to be less mutual scratching of property developers backs!

 

i think the future's bleak for traditional clubs, especially when the smoking ban is introduced (something we can blame on central government not sheffo council!). late bars are where the action will be at, thats if more planning and license applications are granted.

 

if licenses are hard to come by, and again compared to other cities i think sheffield lags behind. i think you ll see clubing and nighlife going full circle...

back to the underground, unlicensed venues, winks and nudges, out of the mainstream (which might not be a bad thing). if or when this happens the blame will surely lie with sheffield council.