Campaigners have confirmed a location during which they’re set to open Lewisham’s first community-owned stay music venue.
Sister Midnight kickstarted a marketing campaign, which was supported by Fontaines D.C., Porridge Radio, Goat Woman, London Evening Czar and DJ Amy Lame and Jools Holland in 2021, to avoid wasting the London pub The Ravensbourne Arms and convert it right into a community-owned stay music venue for all ages.
The Lewisham pub had been boarded up since 2016, however the collective launched a bid to boost £500,000 – providing followers in the neighborhood the chance to carry a stake in what can be a not-for-profit grassroots stay music pub.
Regardless of elevating £260,000 by means of group funding and donations and garnering 800+ buyers, the homeowners of the Ravensbourne Arms had been unwilling to promote, in keeping with Sister Midnight.
Todays the day that we’re in a position to announce our plans for a group owned music venue in Lewisham
We met with the Mayor @damienegan this morning to debate the positioning which is located within the coronary heart of Catford, all the small print shall be revealed tonight at our group assembly 🧡 pic.twitter.com/NastwOJpf4
— Sister Midnight (@sistermidnightt) January 25, 2023
However the collective, who beforehand ran a venue in Deptford, have now secured plans on the derelict former working males’s membership, The Brookdale Membership within the Catford Centre.
“We’ve confronted some fairly enormous challenges with this undertaking, however we’re decided to see this by means of. Securing an area was all the time set to be the most important impediment, however with Lewisham Council’s help we’ve managed to attain above and past what we anticipated; securing a 7 yr hire free lease on an area that meets all of our wants and extra,” the collective’s Lenny Watson mentioned by way of a press launch.
“The brand new website has a lot potential to change into a transformational cultural house for our area people. We will’t wait to get caught into bringing this constructing again into use once more,” added Sister Midnight’s Sophie Farrell.
In line with the collective, the brand new website has its personal personal outside yard, a 250 capability grassroots stay music venue, a group cafe house and house for rehearsal, recording and artist studios on the higher flooring
It’ll additionally supply “multidisciplinary music and humanities programming that champions native expertise, reasonably priced rehearsal and studio house, group occasions and a group cafe stocked with native produce, from beer to baked items.
Income may even be reinvested into the venue, in keeping with Sister Midnight.
The collective beforehand defined how the pandemic-enforced closure of venues proved a “catalyst for realising that we would have liked to create a brand new house that was going to be sustainable within the long-term” with out the strain of getting to pay personal rents.
“Our mission is to create an area for stay music that may be accessible, reasonably priced and inclusive – and an area that may be extra sustainable towards the threats that may be posed to venues,” Watson informed NME on the time. “The pandemic was an enormous one. Individuals may argue that it’s not the most effective time to be doing it, however I’d argue that there’s actually not a greater time to be securing the way forward for our grassroots music venues towards these sorts of threats.”
Watson defined how one of many largest threats to grassroots venues, even lengthy earlier than the pandemic, was personal possession.
“The truth that [venues] don’t personal their buildings doesn’t give them the extent of management that they want over them,” she mentioned. “We’re eager to have a venue that’s not owned by us, however by the group. It will make sure that the way forward for the venue is secure and within the arms of the group for them to make use of and profit from.”
