RIP Venue

Last month, the former printing hall of the Evening Post building on Temple Way was demolished. It had lain empty and unused for two years since the decision was made to print the paper outside Bristol and thus make the ‘Evening’ in the Evening Post redundant, as this is now solely a morning paper.

On the side of the printing hall, now a pile of rubble, were once smart metal signs informing what publications were also produced there. Below the Evening Post, these included the Western Daily Press, Metro and Venue.

The Western Daily Press left for Plymouth last year, and the news emanating from Temple Way today is that Venue will also be leaving the building. Unlike the Western Daily Press, however, Venue will not be moving; it will soon cease to exist at all.

This is terribly sad news. Since its inception 30 years ago, Venue has looked at the goings-on in Bristol and Bath with an irreverent eye, an alternative view to most of the mass media. So it is ironic that the decision to close the magazine was taken by Northcliffe, the local subsidiary of the Daily Mail group who themselves are up for sale.

I do not have the current figures to hand, but a couple of years ago I saw a pie chart of the revenue made in Bristol by Northcliffe. Venue was a tiny slither of the circle, dwarfed by the Evening Post, which itself is nowhere close to operating a tidy profit.

I would not be surprised if Venue has been operating at a loss for some time, and the opportunity has finally come for the suits to cut and run rather than continuing to prop up a loss-making outfit.

Venue continues to be relevant, irreverent, vastly knowledgeable, clued-up, plugged-in, well-respected and trusted. When I first moved to Bristol it was the best way to be made aware of everything going on in our city. It has always continued to be so, and looking at the comments on Twitter this afternoon it is held in very high esteem by a very large number of people.

With the Evening Post now only having one full-time member of staff writing entertainment news (down from three in only two years), the outlook for printed coverage of Bristol’s cultural scene is looking increasingly bleak.

But in the current business climate, a magazine like Venue – however influential – cannot be kept alive as a vanity publication, especially by an organisation as shrewd and cut-throat as Northcliffe.

Blame declining sales, blame the internet, in particular blame a huge loss of advertising revenue. Blame what you will. The fact is that as a business, Venue is simply not sustainable in the eyes of the people who control the purse strings.

If Venue is to disappear, it will leave a massive hole in how the cultural life of Bristol and Bath is reported. Local bands and theatre will no longer have a place to be previewed and reviewed. Exhibitions will disappear beneath the radar. There will no longer be a forum for vibrant discussion of arts issues. And where else will you be able to make it be known that you fancy that girl with brown hair you met on the number 52 bus but foolishly didn’t ask for her number?

Online campaigns have already started to try to save the magazine, and this is admirable.

But a few people re-tweeting a hashtag will not change the minds of the Northcliffe executives and Venue can only be saved by a rich benefactor willing to buy the magazine and not mind that it will continue not to make any money.

Sadly, a small publication covering Bristol and Bath does not have the same cache as the London Evening Standard newspaper or a football club so beloved of foreign investors.

It will be a sad time indeed when Venue soon disappears from the news stands forever, but enjoy it while it lasts and celebrate a much-loved local institution which has unfortunately fallen victim to higher powers and the uncertain times in which we are currently living.

Tweeting this afternoon, Venue editor Joe Spurgeon said: “Yep, heartbreakingly, we’re staring down t’barrel: three more issues of Venue in its current guise. If we can survive, relaunch, find a way of continuing, we will. I am willing to sell grandmother. We’re ‘in consultation’ this week. Thoughts, suggestions etc to editor@venue.co.uk.”