One of London’s most exciting music venues will be allowed to open even later over the weekends.
Hackney Council has reportedly agreed to a request from venue EartH’s request to be allowed to stay open until 5am, a good 90 minutes later than the current closing time of 3:30am.
"The profit margins for running music venues are so thin, there's only the resilience there to withstand very minor shocks,” EartH founder Auro Foxcroft told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
"Making this shift enables us to fit in new early live music shows. It creates a lot more programming opportunities.”
Not been before? EartH is a moderately large venue for a more artsy space, capable of fitting up to 1200 people, or 700 seated.
Big names lined up
Major names who have played there in recent weeks include perennial harmony-botherer Jacob Collier, Billy Bragg, Goat Girl and the Manic Street Preachers, as part of an “in conversation” with band biographer Keith Cameron.
The real heart of EartH is more about the kind of acts you wouldn’t see at London’s larger venues, though.
"EartH’s vision is to present a truly broad program to reflect the wonderfully diverse communities of Hackney. To this end, we have recently hosted artists from across the globe, [like] Mali, Nigeria, Taiwan, Turkey, India, Argentina, and we would like to do more of that,” says Foxcroft.
According to Hackney Citizen, though, the move predictably hasn’t been met by unanimous support from locals. Some complain of “unrelenting” noise, although the publication also quotes other local residents who feel the venue has made the local area a safer place.
EartH opened in 2018, at the site of a former cinema.
The venue’s current listings only reflect the existing 3:30am closing time, but the change won’t affect most of the biggest-name concerts of the next few months anyway.
Upcoming biggies include Malugi (October 31st), Joan as Police Woman (November 15th), The Futureheads (December 22nd) and Jens Lekman (March 14th). There's plenty of newer music on the schedule too, check out the full listings at EartH's website.
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