Friday, June 19, 2020

Concert Venues - Post #2 - "Sweat Box" venues

In the second of a short series of blog posts, I am going to continue to examine my thoughts on the different types of concert venues. 

Sweat Box Venues

There are several medium-sized, standing up indoor venues in the UK. A lot of these, but not all, currently come under the O2 branding - O2 Academy, O2 Institute, and so on. 

As with all the posts in this series, I am basing the opinions purely on the venues I have visited and my own experiences at these places. With just a couple of exceptions, I have found these venues to be less than ideal for taking in live music. I can't help but feel that the managers of some of these venues concentrate too much on extracting as much money as they can from their customers. This is to the detriment of actually providing a decent customer experience. 


Wildwood Kin - O2 Institute 3, Birmingham
7th November, 2019

In the depths of winter, I have been to concerts at some of these venues and it has been far too hot, even in just a t-shirt and jeans. Such is the number of people that pack into these venues, heating is rarely needed even in cold weather. The cynic in me wonders if it is just a ploy to sell more overpriced drinks - a similar tactic to pubs that provide salty peanuts on the bar. 

As someone who suffers from an undiagnosed, mild form of agoraphobia, I struggle sometimes in tightly-packed crowds of people. This doesn't result in any kind of panic attack as such, more a feeling of being distinctly uncomfortable. It's difficult to describe accurately. I'm positive that venues have capacity limits for health and safety reasons but it feels to me sometimes like not all venues abide by these rules. I remember last year at a gig at one of the O2 venues in Birmingham, I was stood right in the middle of the floor as a very large crowd anxiously awaited the arrival of the headline act. I noted the number of people in the venue, counted the number of emergency exits and concluded that it would be very difficult should the need arise to evacuate the place quickly. 

Earlier in this post I touched on the overpriced drinks. The bars inside the venues remain open throughout the entire night, including whilst the artists are performing on the stage. I'm going to write a post specifically about issues that arise from this so I don't want to go into it in too much detail here. It does cause problems though but I don't see venues changing this as it simply generates much revenue for the owners of the venues.

It's not all bad though. I have attended some splendid gigs at this type of venue. It's just that these tend to be the exception, rather than the rule. One excellent gig that comes to mind was at the Arts Club Loft in Liverpool in October 2019. I saw Striking Matches, supported by Tenille Townes, and it was superb. The crowd was really into the music of both artists and the bar was in a separate area at the back. This really cut down the extraneous noise that tends to emanate from the bar area at gigs.


Tenille Townes - Arts Club Loft, Liverpool
27th October, 2019

To sum up, these are generally not my favourite concert venues. They serve a purpose - they host live music but do not always focus on their customers. Obviously we have to go to the places where the tours visit, but I have travelled out of my way in the past to go to a nicer venue. I will continue to do this when we are able to see live music again in a safe way. Hopefully it will be soon.

Photos by myself, Chris Swinden

No comments:

Post a Comment