It is sad to say that the Great Horton Road site has had to close. We know it was too big without the big bands and we were restricted from getting them in.
1/ We had a problem with the council not allowing access for a tour bus coming through the barriers. This was identified when we had the ASH gig. I spoke the a police inspector who allowed the bus to park outside only for within 5 minutes the CCTV people ordered a ticket officer to put a ticket on the bus. This really restricted our operation and we have had talks with the council but to no avail.
2/ I won’t bleat on about people staying in as we all have a recession and supermarket booze is so cheap and they are selling it below cost price. I’d told people “use it or lose it”. Don’t get me wrong, we have superb customers who are loyal and will have a decent night out. The new place will eventually open for six days a week and we’ll be giving it a real go with cask ale beers.
3/ The major problem is the lease we had was scrapped as the people we leased from went into administration and the lease went back to the landlord. He said sign a new lease at four times the rent I was paying or buy it. He gave me six months to find a buyer on half what he was asking. But with the numbers coming in we found it harder and harder, For example one Friday four weeks ago we had 42 in and the next night there were 336. We have had 946 in at one point but many weeks it was low. Then we had the problem with this consortium wanting to join us and buy the building and have a share. These talks went on for three months and I kept tipping them money for a site survey, that was a lot and they were meant to pay the rent but as I found out on Wednesday they had not done this and the landlord asked what was going on. I said we’d better close seeing as he wanted double the rent again after the six month lease so I refrained and decided we were out.
As we were not happy with the numbers through the door for the size of the place we have decided to get a slightly smaller venue a few weeks ago and only this Monday I signed a new lease with someone for a fantastic site that is smaller than Great Horton road but much bigger than the first one we had. That should be open we hope in three weeks so lookout for details. We might rebrand it or it might still be the Gasworks, we’re not sure yet. The landlord had enough of what they had promised and we agreed that we had better walk away now. It is a shame as had sorted the money out to stay here another month.
4/ There has been a certain element wanting us to fail and we know what they were up to but we carried on regardless. I won’t mention names but a few will have a good idea who they are. They even bought a domain name and used it to send people somewhere else to try and take business away from us and to them and many have said that was childish.
5/ We have a magnificent team at the Gasworks and the management and backroom staff have done everything in their powers to bring rock music to Bradford in a decent way. Some have worked over 72 hours in one shift and more. Some friends invested money and they also have been fantastic and we regard everyone as a team member.
6/ The Gasworks isn’t going bankrupt, as some malicious rumours from the dodgy source have risen. A couple of people know where we are going and we’ll be letting you know shortly when we will be in the other 700 capacity premises in the city centre.
To all our friends and loyal customers, we will welcome you back very shortly.
He who laughs lasts the longest.
MAX
