A music venue in Gloucestershire which has hosted artists including The Beatles has secured £10,000 for an upgrade.
The Subscription Rooms in Stroud - also known as The Sub Rooms - has been crowned the regional winner for the South and East of England in copyright group PRS For Music’s Back to Live Music Venue Prize competition.
Originally built in 1833, the historic arts centre - which saw The Beatles take to the stage in 1962, a year before their big break - was saved by local residents when it was set to be sold into private ownership. In 2018, ownership of the grade II-listed building was transferred to Stroud Town Council and Stroud Subscription Rooms Trust.
The Sub Rooms director Hugh Phillimore and fundraiser Nadja Singh plan to use the funding to improve the venue’s sound and tech. The money will also go towards creating smaller, more accessible live music spaces for local up-and-coming musicians to run DJ sets, jams and intimate performances.
Mr Phillimore said: “This recovery-focussed nationwide competition was aimed at helping venues remain at the heart of the community – and we’re certainly doing that’
“We’re determined to serve our local community not only by providing a huge cross section of top-quality entertainment but also by encouraging the wealth of local talent that is out there.”
The Sub Rooms is one of six independent live venues across the UK to win prizes in PRS’ national competition, which PRS said was run to help inject “much-needed” financial support into smaller independent venues.
The rights management collective, which has more than 160,000 members, said it had seen an 84% decline in the number of live performance setlists reported to the organisation - falling from 124,000 in 2019, to 19,300 in 2021.
Tony Barton, head of writer relations, PRS for Music, said: “The Sub Rooms vision to support and upskill the next generation of musicians, while intertwining the arts within the community it serves, caught the eyes of the judges. Congratulations to Hugh, Nadja and the team on its PRS for Music Back to Live Prize.”
Among the other venues to secure funding from the competition was Chesterfield’s The County Music Bar, CWRW in Carmarthen, West Wales, Paisley’s The Bungalow and The Goat’s Toe in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
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