Yes we need a mid sized music venue in the city. Something between pubs and the Ricoh. We miss out on a lot because of it apparently.
This request has been going on for decades though. You’d have to question whether it would pull in enough people from Warwickshire I suppose. But it’s chicken and egg in this city.
Sorry, missed the word council, obviously the correct answer is to froth at the mouth.
What size venue do you think we are missing?
Ericsson Exhibition Hall is 8,000, SkyDome is 3,000, Arts Centre has 1,250, 550 and 150 venues, Kasbah has 1,000, 200 and 150 capacity rooms, Empire is 900, Copper Rooms 1 is 900, Copper Rooms 2 is 300 and there's also another hall at the Ricoh with 650 capacity.
The problem is not lack of venues, the problem is persuading artists and more importantly agents to book shows,. Increasingly artists play less dates so tours only hit 3 or 4 cities. Coventry as a city struggles to attract acts over Birmingham due to population. If you're playing limited dates are you going to go to a city with a population of over 1 million or a population of 325,000. That's before you even compare the availability of public transport in the two cities.
Not to mention Birmingham has 6 venues that are part of the AMG group and a soon to open venue right next to New Street run by DHP. Agents aren't going to create work for themselves, if they can book an entire tour with one call that's exactly what they will do.
I'd love more acts to play Coventry but until we start attracting them to the existing venues building a new one is just throwing money away.
The Hull example he gives is a poor one as its mostly non-music acts that play there, if they moved to a new venue in Coventry the Arts Centre schedule would be half empty.
