An Update from Alexander's Live in Chester

Alexander’s Live was established in the early 90s and is nestled away in Rufus Court in Chester City Centre just off Northgate Street.

The venue was taken over and refurbished in 2015 by Jamie Northrop and his parents Mike and Caroline. They have worked hard to re-establish Alexander’s as the leading live music and Comedy venue in Chester and across the North West, re-investing constantly to get the venue onto a level footing. However, recent closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic has left the venue at risk of permanent closure.

Alexander’s Live is a member of the Music Venue Trust (MVT), a Charity that works to protect, secure and improve Grassroots Music Venues across the UK. Mark Davyd, CEO of the MVT has announced that “the very foundations of the industry… (are) under grave threat”, with 556 of the 670 venues they represent at imminent risk of being permanently closed down. This means that our entire beloved music industry, including Alexander’s Live, could have some very dark days ahead.

Alexander’s has a huge array of talent that has come before helping shape the careers of the like of Ed Sheeran, Duffy, Jack Dee, Russel Kane and many more household names. In more recent years the venue has hosted Maverick Sabre, N-Trance, Urban Cookie Collective, Dave McCabe (The Zutons), Tommy Scott (Space), Paul Jones and Mark Radcliffe. This year Alexander’s was excited to announce that they would be hosting The Christians, The Real Thing, The Team (The Edwin Starr band), UltraBeat, and The Animals. Although the venue is working hard on rescheduling what they can, recent events have left the venue with an uncertain future.

Grassroots Music Venue’s such as Alexander’s are hubs of social interaction, centres of knowledge and creativity, and lead the way in giving platforms to hundreds and thousands of exceptionally talented individuals. Alexander’s has seen local bands such as Kidsmoke, Peaness, Campfire Social, Ennio The Little Brother and many more start out performing here and have since gone on to tour and travel the world. Without these Grassroot Music Venues, the UK’s cultural and creative industry would ‘dry up, from the bottom up’, eventually having a huge impact on the entire industry including the likes of Sony, Spotify, Amazon Music, Universal, Apple, etc.

While the governments emergency legislation closing venues down due to the pandemic are undoubtedly necessary for safeguarding public and staff health, government support to the industry is still falling short in vast amounts. The government’s grants will go some way to keeping venues open, but this is simply not enough. There seems to be no fair or level playing field and support for the industry seems to differ based upon which council you fall under.  For example, Cultural Liverpool have launched a ‘Music Industry Support Fund,’ offering grants of up to £10,000, but so far Cheshire West and Chester have announced no cultural support at all.

Whilst the government’s Furlough and Job Retention Grant Scheme has allowed us to protect our employees for the time being, all other outgoings remain; but with no income whatsoever to pay for them. No insurance company is paying out for any business interruption, forced closure or loss of stock. Despite Alexander’s being fully covered for notifiable diseases in their insurance policy, Eaton Gate insurance is refusing to pay out and has, since the outbreak, attempted to amend policy wording in our schedule.

Furthermore, the government still has made no announcements with regards to rent across the UK. We have been working with our landlords so far on trying to agree a way forwards, but the fact remains that with no income whatsoever we are in no way able to pay rents due. This in turn will have an effect upon landlords across the country and everyone needs to be protected here. We have, therefore, recently written to our local MP, Chris Matheson, asking him to lobby the government to bring in a total rent debt-enforcement moratorium, allowing small businesses a way forwards, enabling them to open when the time comes, but also protecting those landlords that rely on rent for repaying debts. We are at a loss as to why the government is not stepping in to fix this anomaly as a collapse of such a vibrant part of the hospitality sector will benefit no one, landlords included. We are at the moment awaiting a reply from Chris Matheson on this matter.

We have also been pursuing CBILS business interruption loans and overdraughts via Santander, but despite applying almost four weeks ago now, still have no decision on our applications. This is also a very difficult pill for us to swallow as winding the business up in debt will not be sustainable going forwards as we have no reserves or profits to be able to pay these once they would become due, resulting in the possible closure of the venue anyway.

Everyone at Alexander’s is doing all they can in keeping up to date with funding and governments initiatives but also trying to think outside the box. We have already added onto our website a way for customers to make a donation to keep the business going during these times and also a way to buy an ‘advanced bar tab’ as part of Chester’s ‘Pay it Forwards’ scheme. If you would like to help with either of these schemes please log onto www.alexanderslive.co.uk and click the links on their home page. To put things in real terms if every person who likes and follows us on Facebook donated us £1, we would bring in over £12,000 which could, in theory save us from permanent closure.

The closure of the venue has come at the worst possible time with our festival season about to kick off and with this amazing weather we would have seen our beer garden, the biggest in Chester’s City Centre, thriving once again after the tough winter months.

We have also launched a “Go Fund Me” page with some new and interesting things being planned so watch this space. We really do intend on keeping positive and still being here to open the doors whenever we are allowed, and it is safe to do so. Reality is more uncertain, but one thing is for certain and that is that we won’t go down without a fight.

(https://www.gofundme.com/f/alexanders-live-save-our-venue?utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet)

Not only will your donations help keep our small family business trading, the staff employed and the entertainment schedule going, it will enable this vibrant hub of cultural activity to continue.

It will allow your sons and daughters to have a stage for their passions; music, art, spoken word, poetry, fashion, etc. It could save our business and in doing so ensure we can continue to support you and your families alike.

We cannot put into words how thankful we already are for everyone’s donations, help, support and kindness and we will continue the fight to be here for you all as soon as we can be.