New | @SolentAreaProg gigs CentralSouthCoast Solent Prog gigs

As you may have noticed I have several gigs listed as to be confirmed or to be announced. With the situation regarding Covid it has been prudent to hold back before finalising them. There is the possibility of further government imposed restrictions as well as some bands having members or family who are vulnerable so will need to continue isolating as much as possible. A few of the gigs involve overseas bands or bands that have overseas members so there is a possibility that there may be quarantine periods required. These would make their visits impossible as well as it looking like Brexit may make their visits highly impractical now.

There has been a huge whammy now as the very existence of the 1865 and other venues are now under threat. as the following message that I received from the venue explains. (The link is now open).

For my part I'm going to try to run further fundraising gigs. I doubt they will be with 'big' names or even if you will have heard of the participants. but I do hope that you are able to support them anyway (Should they go ahead).

If any musicians who can pull an audience want to help, however tenuously linked to the term 'prog' - please message me.

The 1865 Crowdfunder Campaign
Unfortunately, The 1865 venue was unsuccessful in the bid for a grant from the Cultural Recovery Fund, distributed by Arts Council England in October. Although we are currently trading and providing live events to our faithful patrons, plus work for artists, technical crew, promoters, contractors, security and our bar staff, and still proving for be a viable business, we are finding it increasingly difficult to manage the increase in our event costs, due to extra staffing to enforce CoronaVirus mitigations, while ultimately working with an income that has been substantially reduced from March 2020.On top of that, due to the near six month closure that was enforced upon us when lockdown was introduced, we have accumulated debts that we are not able to pay with our current turnover. Because of this, we are - albeit reluctantly - reaching out to the public and our friends in the industry to help us launch our Crowdfunder campaign. We need as much help to encourage awareness of the campaign and, ultimately, to drive donations as much possible within our network. Guy and I, and many, many others, have worked relentlessly to develop the reputation of the 1865 since we took over the management four and a half years ago - including making The 1865 a staple of the national touring circuit, an essential space to dozens of local communities, and raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity in the process. This is alongside six years of developing grassroots local and touring bands at the legendary Talking Heads venue.Any help that we can get will be used to safeguard the future of the venue, maintaining Southampton's excellent reputation for live venues, and protecting our eclectic programme of events for our patrons.We will be going live on Wednesday morning (tomorrow, sorry for the fairly last minute mail!), and launching publically on our social media and mailing list at midday.The link will be: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/savethe1865Thank you so much, in advance, for any help that you can offer - we greatly appreciate it!