snowboarder Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Well, its time to do it at last. ANyone interested in being part of a new Sheffield rock night(s)/club(s), PM me with your email address and I will set up a mailing list, and then we can arrange a meeting. Now is the time.... I am sure everyone has lots of ideas and suggestions so the first thing to do is have a full melting pot of ideas and relate them to the (boring bit for most), the economic reality of running such an event/nights and the possibility of at the very least covering all costs and outlays. The concept of a profit is also rather attractive but that may be some way off...... I have some experience of this as people no doubt know, but there is plenty of room here for anyone with other experience or just pure enthuiasm. Dedication is the only essential quality....projects like this can consume vast quantities of time. They can also consume vast quantities of money which may never be seen again so getting the RIGHT ideas into operation are vital. For those who dont know me I had plans in 2001 to re-open REBELS and even went to the stages of negotiating a lease, meeting with people who actually matter quite a lot at the Town hall re entertainments licence requirements, etc, and following up, having the place professionally surveyed and evaluated, even set up a web site about what we were doing. Unfortunately, the final surveyors report was a nightmare, and the final word from the Town Hall and the Police was that Rebels was never going to re-open as a club...at least one with a valid entertainments licence. Not fancying the idea of running an illegal club (although some do get away with it) had to drop Rebels and look for another venue. Found CHARLES STREET venue which had been empty for several years in 2001, and this was perfect. Made both a freehold and leasehold offer for the club but the crazy landlord decided to accept a LEASE offer from a certain other club of whom he was well acquainted with the existing management. Lost that one......could not find any more venues aside from what is now the Corporation. In 2001 this was empty and I contacted the owners, but never received any reply from them re the venue. This was before the Corp became interested in it.... Then decided to run rock nights without our own venue just to get something off the ground, being fed up with surveyors, lawyers, greedy freehold companies in London, etc. The only venue we could get in 2001 after trying everywhere was Sheffield University Students Union, and they promised us a whole Summer with posible termtime events as well from september fitting into their student club plans. After many meetings with the ents staff we hired the Foundry and Fusion venue with a large capacity to put on bands and run THE FRIDAY ROCK NIGHT. I did all the poster campaigning, designed the posters and organized the distribution of flyers around all the appropriate bars. With an 8 week countdown to the first event there was a lot of interest in what was really just an experiment. We ran THREE rock nights from June 21st 2001 but the Union then informed us they had decided to refurbish their venues all summer and we could have no more bookings. Moved the night to City Hall ballroom and ran just 2 weeks there before THEY kicked us out as the Corporation moved in with a better offer, needing the venue for DROP. It kind of never went anywhere else as nothing was available on a Friday at the time. No venue management were interested in rock nights at all, so THE FRIDAY ROCKNIGHT became history at that point, but not for want of trying.... This is why own venue is required....club management are notoriously fickle about independant promoters...and they reserve the right to kick u out when they feel like it. It ruins continuity.... lets take it forward from here and see what can be done.....this thread can run with ideas in the meantime, and I will set up a mailing list for those who want to contribute ideas, hard work, investment (yes these things cost to set up and run)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D2J Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 PM'd you mate, Keep me posted DeeJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowboarder Posted June 15, 2004 Author Share Posted June 15, 2004 MORE MORE MORE..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wavey Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Not sure I can offer anything accept that I'd defo give it a whirl. I used to love the 'Mullet Rock' night at The Casbah. I always feel like I'm at least double the average age at The Corporation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Classic Rock Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Happy to work with you if possible, although we only have an 11pm bar licence - we do have full public ents licence however. We're trying to find premises of our own to move to (see 'help me find a pub' thread). Lambert Smith Hampton tried to flog us Rebels recently and I declined. They asked why. I told them I knew about the state of the roof, the wideness of the stairway being unsuitable, lack of access, blah blah blah, they just said 'oh'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowboarder Posted June 15, 2004 Author Share Posted June 15, 2004 Originally posted by Classic Rock Happy to work with you if possible, although we only have an 11pm bar licence - we do have full public ents licence however. We're trying to find premises of our own to move to (see 'help me find a pub' thread). Lambert Smith Hampton tried to flog us Rebels recently and I declined. They asked why. I told them I knew about the state of the roof, the wideness of the stairway being unsuitable, lack of access, blah blah blah, they just said 'oh'. Cool. The licensing regulations ar all set to change anyway at some point fairly soon.....although when that is is up to some guesswork. I believe all bars will able to apply to open until 3am? REBELS...go on then how much were they asking for it in 2004? I had a problem with them in 2001 wanting £22K a year PLUS 15% of turnover PLUS only a full insuring/repair lease (we had to fix everything ourselves). I did hear they had dropped the lease price but its still going to cost anyone £30K plus to repair it, and God knows how much for a new entrance and fire exit. Now I would do that IF it was going to be worth it, but the Council talk about pulling down the whole block in a few years, and walking past it yesterday I noticed bits of masonry about to fall off the sides of the building as well as the roof falling in....legal liabilities would be prohibitively expensive on such a decrepid building struggling to stay standing. When we went to view REBELS in 2001 they made us sign a get out clause explaining that if we were killed by falling bits of masonry it was our own fault and that Lambert Smith and Hampton were not liable in any way whatsoever, having pointed out it was a death-trap. The agent we dealt with, Matthew Barnesdale, of LSH, even refused to take us round the venue, just giving us a key and making a joke about hard-hats and torches. That inspired me with some confidence as to the state of the venue!!!! I took a whole load of pix but cant find them.... perhaps we can organize a meeting there (not REBELS I mean CRB...LOL) quite a few people have given me email addresses so maybe a good team can be put together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Classic Rock Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 I didn't enquire about the price of Rebels, knowing the work involved and the state of the building I didn't really want to know. Matthew B still works at LSH, he wasnt the one who suggested Rebels to us though. I had a long chat with Matthew the other week, he's got a sense of humour unlike many property developers and has some sense of honesty too. I felt like I was actually talking to a real person rather than just a suit. Why not come down to the next CRB meet and talk to people there about your ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowboarder Posted June 15, 2004 Author Share Posted June 15, 2004 when is it? I may be away on holiday..let me know the dates... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Classic Rock Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Not this Sunday but next. The 27th June from 3pm ish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowboarder Posted June 16, 2004 Author Share Posted June 16, 2004 Oh, I may not be around that weekend. Plenty of opportunities though, need to work out what I want to do myself before organising other people. Its a very perculiar market rock nights....it takes a hell of a lot of effort and continuity to get a decent crowd together...I mean look how long DROP took to get off the ground properly in 1993. Planning the RIGHT event at the RIGHT time is always difficult in this market....things are very different to 4 years ago when the Corporation was homeless, for example. Stimulate some more discussion here I hope with that....is there room for a new rock night or rock club, and if so, what can be done that is not being done already at other venues..... Snowball me with ideas..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.