Why venue closures are signalling the demise of Edinburgh club culture

By BRIAN FERGUSON
Published on Saturday 11 February 2012 00:00

AS TWO of the capital’s music and arts spaces are to join a list of successful venues that have closed in circumstances beyond their control, Brian Ferguson asks what this spells for our cultural future

THE prophets of doom haven’t been far from Edinburgh’s nightlife scene over the past ten years. But for many of those with the best interests of the city’s arts and cultural offering at heart, February 2012 is the blackest chapter yet in a decade of ever-darkening gloom.

Ever since the Cowgate fire of 2002 ripped a gaping hole out of the Old Town – causing the overnight loss of venues including La Belle Angele and the Bridge Jazz Bar – the after-dark scene in Scotland’s capital has appeared to lurch from one crisis to another.

This month’s announcement of the imminent closure and overhaul of live music and clubbing venue Cabaret Voltaire – less than a year after its takeover by Glasgow leisure giant G1 – was followed within days by news that the Bongo Club, the longest-running venue in the city, was on the lookout for a new home for the second time in a decade. Edinburgh University has been unapologetic about the reason for an eviction notice – the Bongo Club’s space is needed for new office accommodation.

The Forest, a thriving arts centre and café which had become a major Fringe stronghold despite refusing to issue tickets or even book space in the official programme, closed in August.

Like the Roxy Art House, another Fringe venue which had gradually established itself as a year-round arts hub, it was a victim of the collapse of a charity, Edinburgh University Settlement. Both buildings still lie empty.

The roll-call of casualties before them was long and depressing, each a victim of different circumstances. The former Venue, a major stopping-off point for pop and rock acts on the rise, has at least become an arts venue, in the Ingleby Gallery. The former Odeon cinema on Clerk Street and The Lot in the Grassmarket are boarded up. The gap site created after the Cowgate fire is still a gap.

The two parties in the firing line this month are the G1 Group, the Glasgow-based empire of leisure tycoon Stefan King, and Edinburgh University, which has called time on the Bongo Club a year before its current lease was due to expire.

Club night promoter Paul Robinson says: “In a nutshell there are two types of club venue.

“There are the flashy-looking chain-owned ones that play the most obvious lowest-common-denominator music as a safe bet in order to get as many people in as possible, and they are run by managers who are responsible to area managers above them, who are chiefly only concerned with bar takings.

“These places are mainly frequented by people who just want to go out and get drunk with their mates and don’t really care what they dance to as long as they’re heard it plenty times before. And then there are the independently run venues who recognise the need to put music first – and these places are the lifeblood of the city’s club scene.”

Clubbing and dance music writer Bram Gieben says: “The Old Town has already lost the majority of its mid-sized spaces for local artists and promoters.

“Wilkie House, La Belle Angele, The Venue, and now Cabaret Voltaire have been co-opted by breweries and corporate chains, or disappeared entirely, transformed into flats and offices or, in the case of La Belle Angele, razed to the ground.

“Without the Bongo Club, the Old Town will consist almost entirely of dubious style bars playing chart music, catering for hen and stag nights and binge drinkers. There are excellent small venues – Sneaky Pete’s, Henry’s Cellar Bar, and a few others – who support local and emerging club and gig culture.

“But once promoters gain success in these venues, and need a bigger space to go to, they will very soon be out of options. There is currently no room for growth, development or competition. Edinburgh has its club culture in a stranglehold.

“Just along the M8, dance music and gig culture is embraced, celebrated and even funded. In Edinburgh it is marginalised and misunderstood. It is as if the wealthy property-owners of the town centre – the largest and most wealthy of whom is Edinburgh University – see no value in having a thriving alternative culture.

“But in order for more traditional branches of the arts to flourish, there need to be alternative spaces. Without them, the culture as a whole stagnates.”

Rosamund West, editor of The Skinny arts and culture magazine, adds: “Edinburgh’s club scene has taken a real hammering in the last few years – so many venues have vanished without being replaced and it’s hard not to see this threat to the Bongo as a nail in the coffin. The city centre needs alternative, cross-platform spaces.”

Many observers of the city’s nightlife scene believe it is deeply ironic Edinburgh is losing venues when the property market has yet to recover from its meltdown, and with tourism numbers on the rise and more people flocking to the Fringe every year.

The Forest, The Roxy, the Bongo Club and Cabaret Voltaire are mainstays of the Fringe. Steve Cardownie, festivals and events champion at the city council, says: “These things gradually evolve, venues come and go for a variety of reasons, and we often give them a lot of help to get off the ground. The Underbelly is a good example, as they started with a small venue below the Central Library.”

For Kath Mainland, chief executive of the Fringe, the death knell for the Bongo Club on its current site is the latest in a series of venue to be lost in recent years, particularly outwith the area around George Square. She says: “It is indisputable that there are now fewer independent music venues in Edinburgh than there were in the past, and therefore there are fewer of these venues registering with the Fringe, which is obviously regrettable.

“The Bongo Club, in particular, has a very strong track record on the Fringe and having already been through one venue change I hope they can find a new one soon.”

Marco Biago, SNP MSP for Edinburgh Central, says: “A lot of people are rushing to hold the wake for independent arts venues in Edinburgh.

“There’s no doubt that both the Forest and the Bongo Club are healthy businesses with real support bases – they’re just lacking in bricks and mortar. This is more of a property crisis for arts venues than a market downturn. People still want to go just as much as they ever did to the lively atmospheres that only the smaller independent venues can provide.”

However Ally Hill, manager of the Bongo Club says: “The city needs every rung on the ladder of venues to be able to take musicians from playing in rehearsal space to performing and commercial success in order to have a flourishing vibrant music scene. Edinburgh is losing this. We do not have the range of music and arts venues that you’d expect from a capital city.

“Multi-arts performance spaces are of particular importance because they encourage interaction between artists; poets talk to musician, film-makers talk to dancers, collaborations happen.

“The university is one of, if not the biggest property owner in Edinburgh and it provides a huge percentage of the seated capacity of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and whether it likes it or not it has a responsibility to the arts in Edinburgh.”

A spokesman for the university says: “We have investigated whether there is a suitable alternative building within our estate to host the Bongo Club, but were unsuccessful. As the situation moves forward, we will provide the Bongo Club with all the appropriate help we can in its relocation.”

A spokesman for the G1 Group adds: “We’ll be running both clubs and live music at Cabaret Voltaire after the refurbishment and there is no reason why this should exclude the Fringe.”

Roxy Art House

A long-time Fringe venue, which played host to the likes of Victoria Wood, Craig Charles and Richard Whiteley, the former church was gradually transformed into a thriving year-round arts centre. Latterly run by impresario Rupert Thomson, it enjoyed a hugely successful Fringe season in 2010, only for the charity that owned the building to collapse. It is still on the market.

HMV Picturehouse

Hugely welcomed by music fans when it opened four years ago, the 1,500 capacity venue became part of the HMV group the following year. However, its future is uncertain as the struggling entertainment giant said in December that it had placed 13 of its venues across the UK under review.

The Venue

A legendary rock venue and nightclub which played host to the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Faith No More, Coldplay and Deacon Blue. However, it was sold off to a property developer who wanted to build new flats above it. The former Venue was later turned into an art gallery.

The Lot

The future of this former church in the Grassmarket seemed secure – after a troubled tenure as a sports bar and a malt whisky bar – when it was transformed into an arts venue nine years ago. However, the charity which owned the building closed it last year, saying it was unviable.

Forest Cafe

The independently run arts centre, exhibition space and cafe built a huge underground following after opening in 2003 and was a highly acclaimed Fringe venue, despite refusing to charge entry to shows. The venue was closed after last year’s Fringe when the Edinburgh University Settlement charity collapsed.

La Belle Angele

La Belle Angele was a thriving music and clubbing venue before it fell victim to the blaze that wiped out a huge chunk of the Cowgate and South Bridge in December 2002, along with other venues such as the Bridge Jazz Bar and the home of the Gilded Balloon Fringe empire. Planning wrangles have held up a new development, but La Belle Angele is set to return eventually.

Bongo Club

Based in part of a former bus depot on New Street until being forced to make way for a new development, it faces having to relocate from its current home on Holyrood Road to make way for office accommodation for the building’s owner, Edinburgh University.

Cabaret Voltaire

An award-winning nightspot and live music venue that survived for a decade before it emerged earlier this month it would be closed for a major revamp and new identity. The venue’s owners went into liquidation three years ago and the site was bought by the Glasgow-based G1 Group last year.

The Odeon

The flagship venue for film premieres in the city has been all but empty since being sold by the cinema chain in 2003 to developer Duddingston House Properties. It had a brief spell as a major Fringe venue, but efforts to reopen it as an arts centre have come to nothing, and plans for a hotel on the site were rejected by the Scottish Government.

Ego

A major nightspot on Picardy Place for more than a decade, the former Ego nightclub complex became part of an adjacent bar-restaurant and hotel complex two years ago. A new steakhouse is about to open as part of the Hawke & Hunter complex, where chef Mark Greenaway already has a restaurant, this month.

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Flotsam and Jetsam

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 03:23 PM

This IS nonsense. The 'prophets of doom' are people writting articles like this. Is it about culture arts Fringe or clubbing in general? Why mention Ego and not Cafe Graffiti or the Guilded Balloon? The Bongo is NOT the longest running venue and the smoking ban had more impact on numbers than the fire in the Cowgate. Edinburgh's Underground club scene is alive and kicking dispite the depression with some pubs and clubs looking and sounding better than ever ... City Cafe, The Southern, Medina, District to name a few.

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Ken Charleson

Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 10:51 PM

Edinburgh's always been the same. Let's get Ed University off the hook for starters. They run a business called Edinburgh University. They have no responsibility at all for anything but their own business which has little to do with anything not directly related to making money from education. It used to be different, but like it or lump it, that's the way it is today. Next, Edinburgh, despite its international reputation as a major festival city, is still a small town of a couple of hundred thousand people, most of whom are much more worried about making a living wage than they are about getting out to see the latestgreatest show on earth. What brings folk to Edinburgh is its spectacular beauty and its place in the ( world) historical spectrum as a centre for philosophy and the arts which far outstrips its size and its quaint geographical point-on-the-planet. Third but by no means least, part of Edinburgh's charm is its chronic inability to sustain anything but the most fundamental basics of human co-existence which dates from the days the only means of getting rid of human effluent on the streets was a good downpour. Trams? I rest my case.

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christopherreay

Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 09:47 AM

Pending Moderation

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dgg

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 12:57 PM

Were this as simple as "Oh dear, another clubbing venue has bitten the dust" I don;t think anyone would care. But I've seen what Out of the Blue have done at the Drill Hall in Dalmeny Street; I know that the Bongo club is a whole lot more than a place to listen to music. Look at their contributions to Arts in general at the Fringe. It would be good were Edinburgh University to change their mind. Office space is ten-a-penny. There are many suggestions regarding venues. To that list, why not add the Gateway at the top of the walk? I agree Edinburgh has lots of unused or under-used venues. Quite amazing for a city that plays on its Festival and Fringe reputation.

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trenchchat

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 10:21 AM

This is nonsense. clubs come and go all the time ,its the nature of their business. Not only that we are in the middle of the biggest economic crisis since the 1930's - and clubs are not immune from this. Wake up Mr Ferguson!

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claymore's edge

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 09:11 AM

Very good article. Sort of sums up the topsy turvy attitude in Edinburgh to local clubbing. when it comes to entertaining tourists, Edinburgh obliges. But when it comes to providing the locals with decent venues, it is shockingly woeful. ------------------------------------------------Also its worth noting that many pub chains need to take some of the blame for opening up rubbish pubs in spaces that would have made a better clubperformance space. The Wetherspoons pub chain is a MASSIVE culprit in that regard. The Foot o the Walk pub at the bottom of Leith Walk would have made a good nightclub. The Wetherspoon pubs it has on George Street are too large to be pubs an should have been used for performance venues. Also some comedy clubs and casinos need to be removed from Edinburgh and that space given over for local music gigs and club nights.

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