Very sad news from Cardiff.
To all customers, promoters, fans, bands and supporters of The Point Cardiff Bay
It is with deep regret that we announce the closure of the venue today. On 27th February 2009 the Director of the Point Cardiff Bay Limited signed the appropriate notices to call a meeting of creditors pursuant to S98 Insolvency Act 1986.
A number of factors have contributed to this situation. Many of you will be aware that during 2008 we began receiving noise complaints from one or two neighbours that had moved into the new apartments that have been built next to the venue. After some difficult negotiations with the Cardiff City Council we undertook a huge amount of work to soundproof the venue in an attempt to secure its future. While that has largely been successful, the burden of the debt that we took on, together with greater restrictions in our banking facilities and more difficult trading conditions in the last few months, as well as the loss of revenue whilst the refurbishment works were undertaken, has meant we are unable to meet our current liabilities and have been left with no option but to seek voluntary liquidation.
Many people have put their heart and soul in turning the Point into the magical venue that it is and we have received huge and loyal support over the years from fans and bands alike. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for that support. It is a very sad day for us and for the live music scene in Cardiff.
If you have bought tickets for shows in advance, we must advise you to seek compensation from your credit card company. If you are a supplier to the Point, there will be further news about a creditors meeting in due course.
This venue seems to fallen victim to a nasty combination of the credit crunch, the preceding property bubble, and some Cardiff council politics that have a whiff of corruption about them.
The venue had existed for years in what had been a run-down commercial district of the city. Then during the property boom the area got yuppified as property developers started converting empty buildings into luxury flats. Then the new neighbours started complaining about the noise. From a business that had been operating in the area long before those occupants moved in.
I haven’t heard any valid explanation as to why the venue itself had to bear the full costs of soundproofing work, rather than the property developers who made this soundproofing necessary in the first place, and presumably walked away with fat profits. Thinks like that do make me wonder if backhanders to council members might have been made (with the legally required “allegedlys”, of course).
Sadly, all too often the bastards win. Cardiff loses a superb music venue, while a bunch of pretentious yuppies get to enjoy their negative equity.
Yuck. My sympathies. A small but significant club in downtown NYC, Tonic, was narrowly able to avert closure by soliciting donations to have many of its code problems dealt with. The bad news is that the live spaces as a whole all seem to be disappearing, and not being replaced with anything.