ALL AUTHOR REWARDS FOR THIS POST WILL BE DONATED IN EQUIVALENT GBP TO THE PARISH!
Four years ago today, my local music venue in Huddersfield called The Parish were celebrating their 10 year anniversary of being open, awesome and putting on amazing shows..
And now they're having to run a fundraiser..
Let's rewind a second...
The Parish is a wonderful bar and venue, full of life, character and brilliant people.
A real community made up of music fans, artists and musicians.
As well as being an amazing pub with incredible home made food, its main attraction is the small but astoundingly cool 150 capacity venue - outside in its own building - and it has hosted some incredible bands over the years.
I made a film about them (it was a personal project, no money exchanged hands to do it!) which you can see right here:
As you can see from my video, some incredibly cool bands and musicians like; The Bronx, Coolio, Wheatus, Cancer Bats, While She Sleeps, Ginger, DJ Lethal (Limp Bizkit) (and loads more I'm forgetting) to name a few have entertained our town - all down to the hard work of my favourite promoter called Mikey!
Sadly, The Parish today are threatened with permanent closure...
They will be forced to close if they can’t meet their financial obligations during this lockdown.
This lockdown in the UK has forced pubs and restaurants to close without renumeration or support of any kind from the government. No one was prepared for this, and venues often survive on cash-flow week to week.
It’s very sad.
The overheads on many establishments continue, such as staff, rent, bills, business charges etc
Luckily, the Parish have an incredible music and beer loving community (much like HIVE!) to count on, who to want to see it survive!
Over £30,000 have been raised so far, and today is the last day to donate to their cause to reach their £40,000 target.
However, something really special is happening at 8.30pm GMT (UK time) - folk / punk troubadour Frank Turner is doing a live YouTube session from his living room in aid of The Parish at 8.30pm TONIGHT (30th April)!
During lockdown he has kindly been running fundraising live gigs for local independent venues, helping them stay afloat during these times.
Tonight is The Parish’s turn!
So if you’re feeling generous, perhaps you like the idea of The Parish and/or like Frank Turner then please tune in and donate, if you’re in a financial position to do so.
All the details you need to know about the fundraiser can be found HERE and keep an eye HERE for Franks live show a 8.30pm UK time! 9.30pm EU time.
The show MUST go on. Viva La Parish X
It's sad to see this situation happening to so much venues , the music scene is going thru very strange times now . Here in Ecuador and probably all South America i don't think there will be any shows for the rest of the year , so we will have to get creative to get thru all this . I really do hope you get to your goal ! Hope a little resteem from my part helps. Cheers!
That’s super kind!
It’s really fucked the hospitality industry.
I believe our venue will pull through. 🤞🏻
shitty to hear about that, especially that government did not do anything to help.
10 of us are paying rent for "our" Underground music club from the start of this year because it was that or they close down. last few years we had shit ton of migration and less and less people, and this corona stuff will for sure not help for their business.
Hope they make it.
Thanks man, I hope they pull through too!
The support has been huge. The fundraising campaign came to an end at £42,000.
That should keep them going for a good few months. Sadly their landlords are making the pay FULL rent during all this. The landlords are notoriously ruthless pricks.
Rent is about £12k a month 😮
Sounds like a great think you’re doing for your local too my friend!
Take care out there man
we live in different worlds but 12k a month sounds just crazy