Christina Dean's words
Few things are constant in a city that is in flow as much as London, something that Stuart Glen, Eugene Wild and The Cause Crew know very well.
After Opening the original Iteration of the Cause in 2018 AT Ashley House in Tottenham, and Throwing Som they had to vacate the site in 2022. The Search for a New Home Led Them to 60 Dock Road, Across The Dock from the Excel and Close to the city airport, where they made a series of emerging shows before growing in space permanently. As well as permanent as possible in a site Meanwhile, a precariousness that Stuart has adopted: “It lasts all the time we last. We like to take clearing, risks and things and our educated assumption is that we are going to get another summer or two of him, or maybe more. So we go to all the strength and hell for the leather. Whenever we are going to go out with him, we will go out with him.”
Despite being in the game for more than eight years with the cause, during which the organization has cultivated one to five places, as well as navigating multiple relocations, the industry is still throwing curved balls.
The newest member of the Cause Family is Vittoria Wharf, an old industrial loft in Hackney Wick that is now a capacity of 200 and an artistic space, coincidentally on the space where Stuart cut the tooth warehouse parties about ten years ago. It has only been open several weeks, but there have been initial problems. “We have just had some license problems, so we only have a license to 1 am, apart from the notices of temporary events, which makes it a bit complicated,” explains Stuart. “We went to look for a license from three o'clock. We had a couple of entrometry neighbors who bother us. Therefore, basically they put representations, and the council did not agree on our late license, which is quite important to be honest.” It seems that the handful of complaints about the noise were done during the moments when the place was not open, so it is likely that an illegal part in or around one of the warehouses of the area was guilty. “We have another person's stick in it, but we will fight and live another day,” he says, with a forwarding to the council now in the letters.
Unfortunately, it is becoming a too familiar story. According to the Music Lenging Trust, the “operating problems”, such as noise complaints, were behind more than a fifth of the 148 place closures in 2023. Night and day in the Northhern Quarter of Manchester were involved in a row of noise for three years after the Council notified in 2021 after the complaints of the residents in a neighboring floor. In 2022, Compton Arms had a review about his license after four neighbors complained about the noise, and the Blondie brewery in Leyton had the same thing that this spring happened only. The Hackney Moth Club revealed that it was threatened at the end of last year after the developers placed plans to build new floors that would return to the part of the building where the scene of the place is located and have balconies with a view to the smoking area, which the programmer Keith Miller, finally, would lead to noise complaints. The London has drawn all the pubs of the city that deal with noise complaints, including sekforde in Clerkenwell, which shows how single people, with often trivial complaints, can put a knee place.
“It is quite difficult for the places to operate at a profitable level that I would say at this time. If we did not have our outdoor space, it would not be in this”
Through the establishment of a new work group of nightlife and the granting of additional powers to cancel the decisions of licenses taken by the local councils, the mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, seems to be trying to address some of the problems facing the places. But is it enough? It is a resounding of Stuart.
“I think that the main thing they have to do is really look at the balance of what the places provide compared to the negatives and look at the positive aspects. Because, for example, sometimes we have about 50/60 waiters in, so we have four or five sound engineers, managers, supervisors. We have as 30/40 security in a show, so it is possible that it is a show as a show, we have 100 people who work on the site They are specified, and that are not specified, and that are not specified, and that are not specified from people on the site. “So there is a great ecosystem, and there is much that comes from that. It supports a lot of work, many jobs, and there are many taxes that are paid for the VAT tax and corporations.”
Although it directs its operations in an adequate and safe way, there is always the feeling of being at risk, that the complaints of a small minority can overcome enormous benefits such as “thousands of people who arrive in a weekend having a good time, £ 30/£ 40,000 in the VAT paid one week … it only seems crazy.” For him, the powers that must “really try to take care of good operators and fight against their side.”
The problems adjacent to the license are one thing, but it is the economy that provides the murderous blows to the operators and places. Not only have customer spending habits change as life costs have increased, but the impact is felt at the other end with the staff, rent, rates and electricity costs, everyone increases. “It is quite difficult for the places to operate at a profitable level that I would say at this time. If we did not have our outdoor space, it would not be in this, I would do anything else, because it would not work financially for us,” he says. This is not an exclusive situation of Stuart, since the owners in all areas feel the same pinch, but executing a club like the cause comes with its own specific set of challenges, which makes it a more volatile business. “We have focused on building a really great and very decent club that is different from anywhere else. It is DIY. It has a good aesthetic. The sound is good in all rooms, and the atmosphere is a bit different from anything else that goes in London,” Stuart explains, but it is also “pure storage. Storage, you know, not very close to another nightlife.”
The club is still the core of the operation, but Stuart has had to diversify its sources of income to help extend that risk. All my friends, the bar and the record store in Hackney Wick, which was the first additional place that it opened, it happened: “Because, with all honesty, we were desperate to have some type of income that made business and a transmission that would maintain the organization Long.
“We have focused on building a really great and very decent club that is different from any other place. It is DIY. It has a good aesthetic.”
Other sites also mean more opportunities to involve an audience. Stuart explains that all my friends were designed as a meeting place for Clubbers when they do not want the commitment of a great night until 6 in the morning, just a place to eat, drink and listen to good music. “You have, as, waves of people who come to the club. Now I am 45 years old and many of my classmates are not coming, or come to the great shows. They are more likely to go to some of our bars or want to eat a good meal. It is a bit cyclical, so it is only involving audiences as they grow through their different social patterns, in reality.”
Now the group also directs Peckham Pub The Grayhound, which is making a name with the murderous residences (first it was Natty Can Cook, now there is patio pizza in the kitchen); Dalston Restaurant, cocktail and high fidelity bar The Marquee Moon, with a touch of Oriental Asian in the pub classics; and the intimate Club Space Vittoria Wharf.
Although the expansion of the group has been “about building a much stronger force we could use to bounce among us to create a more cultural impact throughout the city.” Stuart is fast to say that it is stopping there for the foreseeable, in part to reduce its blood pressure and mainly because the weather is very risky. “We basically want to concentrate on what we obtained, refine everything, really modify everything, make it work as well as possible and continue doing so many good programs for as many audiences as possible.”
See the latest events that occur in the cause here.
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Author: Saxon
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