Keeping pubs open

14 Aug 11 - 06:16 AM (#3207742)
Subject: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Les in Chorlton

In the current economic climate, or now as it is also known, loads of pubs have closed and more may follow. Some of these pubs have been used by folkies and as a result clubs and other folk events have ceased and failed to find other suitable venues.

It is in everybod's interests to keep pubs open, especially those that can host folk and other live music events.

Thes are some of the things we have done at The Beech:

The Beech

We hold a song or tune session every week and the Irish musicians do the same, but we are looking increasingly at other, often non-folk events to get people into the pub. This supports both the pub and in the longer term our folk events.

During the local arts week we put something on every night including;
poets, cajun, storytelling, singer-songwriters, clog dancing and morris. We also had an art exhibition in the pub that stayed up for a month in the end.

We did a flash mob and have played at Ceilidhs as The Beech Band, 20 odd musicians playing acoustically and encouraging people to come to The Beech. Last Night we had "Shakespear's Greatest Hits" when some of our friends from our sessions read or recited parts of WS's works and others who don't come to folk events also read passages. Loads of people came many of which would probably not come to a folk event.

We are know thinking about book readings by local writers and poets, daft songs and stand up comedy and so on.

None of this distracts us from our weekly folk nights, it's a small pub and we are generally packed, but we trust these other events will help the pub to keep open.

Any other ideas and suggestions?

L in C#

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14 Aug 11 - 08:53 AM (#3207790)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Desi C

Can you tell me where your pub is? If it's anywhere near I'd like to visit, I run a club in the West Mid's and also have a twice weekly e.mail newsletter that reaches much of the UK and even Australia & USA, send me more details and I'll gladly give your place a plug, contact me, Desi, on [e-mail]

When I first came to live here in The Black Country there were around 60 pubs in this area, all doing good trade, over 40 have gone in recent years. Sadly I think the breweries are deliberately running pubs down by hiring untrained tenants. There is some law apparently that a Brewery can't close a pub and sell it off i.e sell the land, if there isn 't another pub within a certain distance, think this might be one & a half miles. And many breeweries now want to sell off a lot of their pubs as private land and only delelop large super pubs. To get round the egulations they run certain pubs into the ground by taking on incompetent managers, charging them too much for the beer, and eventually theu can show the pub is no longer a going concern and they can then close it. Pubs are really the ONLY part of British culture left, it amazes me that orgs like CAMRA don't use their influence to try to stop this

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14 Aug 11 - 09:05 AM (#3207798)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Les in Chorlton

Pubs are like most businesses. In the end people have to go through the door and buy stuff. I think something about trying to spot what is individual about the pub and how this might relate to people in the area.

If it the only answer is filling downstairs with people watching football so that folkies can sing in the upstairs room then so be it I feel many pubs have other potential and I trust people will pop up on here and tell us about it

L in C#

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14 Aug 11 - 09:28 AM (#3207811)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,Jon

I only knew of one in Norwich that had a few folk(ish) things per week and also considered itself a sort of community pub. That one closed.

I know there was a disagreement regarding payment for electrical work needed for safety regulations but there were also rumours that the company who owned the property were fond of closing down and re development. I'm not sure where the truth lies but I do suspect "fault" on both the landlord and owners sides.

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Anyway, at least for the session I did go to there, another door opened. This pub agreed to open up on a Sunday night to host it (providing he has enough trade to make it worth while). I think it's a fantastic pub, perhaps a little strange as I feel as if I'm stepping back in time when I go in but it has a great feel about it for a session.

I've learned that the landlord owns the pub, that there is an unused downstairs bar and they have a fantastic large garden stretching down to the river. Although I wouldn't be getting involved in something like this, I could imagine it would be an ideal venue for some sort of folk weekend.

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14 Aug 11 - 11:03 AM (#3207855)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Richard Bridge

The pub in which I used to do the Lower Coke lock-ins is a pile of rubble at present. The other pub in Lower Coke, in which I did the lower Coke Winter sings, I will be doing the Lower Coke Winter Sings again this year - and on 3rd Sept I am doing PA for a metal music night I have organised.

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117505638348523


Vikki (funny names kids have these days) the manageress cannot organise any long-term stuff because the brewery (Sheperd Neame) wants to let to a tenant and the last potential ones vanished on signing (and deposit) day - so there is the occasional stripper, the occasional DJ night, darts, euchre, dominos, but not a lot really, no food, and beer (by which I mean BEER) only occasionally as teh contractors and kids who are the main users drink funny chemical stuff. Still, she is trying to get me the Late Red for Oct 9 which will be the first winter sing this year.

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14 Aug 11 - 11:55 AM (#3207892)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,Jon

Seem to be a lot of Punch Taverns in my part of N Norfolk...

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14 Aug 11 - 12:14 PM (#3207907)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Jim Carroll

Doing my best Les, but you can only drink so much!!
Jim Carroll

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14 Aug 11 - 01:55 PM (#3207993)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Les in Chorlton

That's the danger isn't it - I trust we can get others to be the beer as well as us!

What number Kepple Road was your old abode Jim?

Les

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14 Aug 11 - 02:33 PM (#3208020)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Fred McCormick

Les,

Good to see someone doing something proactive to keep such a charming pub open.

I haven't got off my arse and been to one yet, and I'm aware you may have them in Manchester already, but something called Philosophy in Pubs has taken off here on Merseyside in the past few years. Obviously I'm not in a position to tell you very much, and in any case you can get more information here .

However, the aim seems to be to encourage systematic, serious, rational discussion, esp of topics of current interest, in a friendly and tolerant atmosphere.

(Thinks. Woa!. Systematic, serious, rational, friendly, tolerant. These are not adjectives one would apply when thinking of Mudcatters. Better tell Les to be careful who he lets in!)

Joking apart, I have engaged in poetry discussion groups, with much the same terms of reference and found them great fun and mentally very stimulating. They can be particularly rewarding when somebody says something to alter your whole perspective on a poem you thought you knew so well that you could hum it backwards in the dark.

Which leads me to a logical second suggestion. Why not see if you can start a poetry discussion group? I might even come over and give you the lowdown on Larkin, or dish the dirt on Dryden, or heckle Ted Hughes, or raise the rafters with Anthony Raftery.

Well, it's a thought. Which is roughly where we came in.

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14 Aug 11 - 02:44 PM (#3208026)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Fred McCormick

Just thought of something else. There's a lot of traditional jazz bands still playing around the north west and they often have difficulty finding suitable pub residencies.

No it's not that the pubs are crowded out with poets and philosophers. It's just that they can't compete with noisy discos and karaoke nights. Let me now if that sounds a possibility and I'll put a few feelers out.

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14 Aug 11 - 02:56 PM (#3208032)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Les in Chorlton

Thanks Fred, we have poets here - and I hope to invagle them. The rooms a bit small for jazz but philosophy sounds interesting - I think most people in pubs do that naturally and sometimes badly

Les

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14 Aug 11 - 03:08 PM (#3208038)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Alan Day

The Sorrell Horse in Shottisham nr Woodbridge is being purchased by the Village. Shares are offered to the community in an attempt to keep the pub open a central part of the little Suffolk Village.It looks as if they have succeeded so good luck to them. I hope to be moving to this part of the World and I will give it every support.
Al

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18 Aug 11 - 03:58 AM (#3208735)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: johncharles

one pint of cider in a local supermarket costs £1. The same lager in local pub costs £3.40p. I wonder why folk are not going to the pub?

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18 Aug 11 - 03:59 AM (#3208736)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: johncharles

for lager read cider.

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18 Aug 11 - 04:17 AM (#3208746)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,FloraG

The only open session pub in Broadstairs was nearly £8 for 2 drinks. We would have gone there most afternoons and started a session but that would have worked out a bit more than we wished to pay. The pubs loss.

However, it worked out in the festivals favour as we went down the front and busked in what I think of as the bus stops on the front and the people of Broadstairs contributed very generously while we were there, to the festival collection.

The day time session pub at Faversham hop festival is the Bull. I've never thought of myself as a member of the pub preservation society before but I hope a good number of folkies will turn up to support said society.
FloraG.

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18 Aug 11 - 07:39 AM (#3208803)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Manitas_at_home

Flora, The beer in No 23 was a lot cheaper than that! I was charged £2.80 for a FestivAle on one day and I don't think I had anything costing more than £3.40.

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18 Aug 11 - 02:43 PM (#3208407)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Fred McCormick

Les. How small is small? I've seen six piece jazz bands squeeze into some mighty tight spaces.

Fred.

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18 Aug 11 - 03:23 PM (#3209018)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,FloraG

We had a cyder and a beer - not sure which sort. My husband was surprised enough to mention the cost - which he would not normally do. It was not a problem as the days we went busking were good weather days and we ended up playing with people that perhaps we would not have played with otherwise. We ended up with a larger audience too by being on the front than could have fitted into 23.

maintas - hope to see you at the Bull at faversham.

FloraG

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18 Aug 11 - 03:54 PM (#3209041)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Richard Bridge

I have a PA gig elsewhere that clashes with the event mentioned so will not be there in any event.

I did think of offering the Elephant an open mic on the Friday or Saturday evening. Last time I played there the people who had said they were coming did not so I played all night myself without PA but was made most welcome. Nonetheless owing to the PA gig it will not be this year.

The Bull is a bit away from the centre so does not suffer from the electric noise of the town centre pubs and a nice pub although I remeber the beer being I think £3.40 per pint last year.

I remember it having a nice back garden (if I have not got it confused with a different pub) so one could have two acoustic sessions eg one mainly diddly/humpty and one mainly song for the price of one and maybe one could run on into the evening.

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18 Aug 11 - 03:58 PM (#3208458)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Jim Carroll

Hi Les
49
Jim Carroll

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18 Aug 11 - 04:05 PM (#3209048)
Subject: RE: Folklore: Keeping pubs open
From: Rafflesbear

At the Seven Stars, Foots Cray High Street we are running a four day Festival of Live Music over the August Bank Holiday in addition to our regular folk club and live music Saturday nights.

This pub is strongly dependent on our live music

http://www.sevenstarslive.co.uk/festival

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19 Aug 11 - 03:54 AM (#3209278)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,Graham Bradshaw

Didn't Johnny Handle write a song about this - "They're clsoing down the old pubs" - back in the 60s if I remember correctly?

Back then, every street corner had a pub (and a corner shop), when it was a substitute for people's living rooms. Habits change, and the market adjusts accordingly.

If people suddenly started going to pubs again, I guarantee the breweries would respond and open more. Sorry, that was a flying pig.

G

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19 Aug 11 - 12:50 PM (#3209478)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Les in Chorlton

Thanks folks all intrestin stuff. Thread drift is not always inappropriate nor unwanted - as in this case but I was trying to explore the idea of encouraging other things to happen in the pubs we use so that the pubs stay open:

non-folk open mike and jams, jazz, poetry, storytelling, discussion groups, Am Dram, play and book readings, book swaps................?

Any others?

Les

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19 Aug 11 - 09:35 PM (#3209743)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,Guest

Quote from the landlord of our local.

"There won't be any pubs as we know them left in ten years"

and further quote

"It's all the fault of the supermarkets / middle men / breweries / Maggie Thatcher / the government"

My money is on the middle men and Maggie!

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19 Aug 11 - 09:48 PM (#3209745)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,Guest again

Just remembered

I was in a pub in Oxford last week when the landlord "explained" how the supermarkets are beating the system and shutting the pubs down.

Apparently it goes like this.

The supermarket negotiates a cut throat deal with a brewery and buys a million or so bottles of their (the brewery's) beer. It (the supermarket) then reclaims the VAT on its purchase.

Next the supermarket sells the beer at less than it has paid for it and so pays less VAT on the subsequent resale and it is there that it makes its profit by offsetting against the VAT element of its other sales.

Now I've tried very hard to make sense of this but given the VAT figure of 20% I find this impossible to equate.

Of course supermarkets also sell - at inflated prices - lots of things like food that are zero rated for VAT.

Maybe that is where it benefits them.

Apparently there is a government think tank looking at this!!!!

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19 Aug 11 - 10:43 PM (#3209760)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Effsee

The simple answer, when they banned smoking in pubs they destroyed the whole ethos! I used to go to the pub regularly, now I stay at home and have my tinnies...and my smokes. Case solved!

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20 Aug 11 - 02:34 AM (#3209800)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Les in Chorlton

Thanks folks all intrestin stuff.

Pubs close and pubs stay open for all sorts of reasons.

I am trying to explore the idea of encouraging other things to happen in the pubs we use so that the pubs stay open:

non-folk open mike and jams, jazz, poetry, storytelling, discussion groups, Am Dram, play and book readings, book swaps................?

Any others?

Les

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20 Aug 11 - 04:31 AM (#3209828)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,FloraG

we spent a wet afternoon in a weatherspoons doing a collective crossword from the magazine.
FloraG.

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20 Aug 11 - 12:22 PM (#3209962)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Les in Chorlton

Ok, we are planning a Book Swap - or more accurately a donate and buy-back. People bring unwanted books to the Beech. Other people take the ones they want for a £1 each to Oxfam.

Some left overs will go on the Beech Bookshelves and some to the Oxfam Bookshop.

Anyone tried this? Advice taken

L in C#
PS. Motives are many including getting people into the pub to keep it open

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20 Aug 11 - 06:39 PM (#3210120)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: skipy

"The simple answer, when they banned smoking in pubs they destroyed the whole ethos! I used to go to the pub regularly, now I stay at home and have my tinnies...and my smokes. Case solved!"

Me too, our thriving local is like a ghost town these days, it was the local tradesmen that popped in for a couple a day on the way home from work that put the most money over the bar, they don't bother now.

26% of us smoke, give us 1 pub in 4, this is a democracy isn't it!

Still loosing pubs at a rate of 25 a week!

Skipy

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20 Aug 11 - 06:46 PM (#3210123)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Smokey.

They should give the pubs back to the breweries, sort out the entertainment licence nonsense, and put the ashtrays back.

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20 Aug 11 - 07:11 PM (#3210134)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: skipy

The "non smokers" who where going to go to the pub after the ban never did! Strange that because they never did in Scotland, Ireland, Canada or the USA!
Most of Europe has put the ash trays back & taken no notice.
Skipy

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20 Aug 11 - 07:24 PM (#3210140)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Van

I drink in a small pub. A few hundred yards up the road I can buy a bottle of my usual beer in Morrisons for £1. This is cheaper than the landlord pays the brewery for his stock. I don't want to sit at home drinking on my own. I want to go out and meet people have a laugh and a drink and socialise. If the brewers sell off the pubs for development Where will we be able to go for a chat, sing song etc?
The pub is known for the high class of insults offered to regulars. heaven.

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21 Aug 11 - 04:36 AM (#3210265)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Les in Chorlton

Lost 2 dear friends to lung cancer in the last year or 2. Not a good thing

L in C#

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21 Aug 11 - 07:13 AM (#3210293)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: melodeonboy

My people moved to the village of Yalding (Kent) in 1989. At the time there were six pubs in and around the village. By 2005 (two years before the smoking ban was introduced!) there were only three remaining, one of which had turned half of the pub into a restaurant. Extensive pub closures started long before the smoking ban!

Consider the following (yeh, I know, some of it's been covered already!):

1. As mentioned above, you can now buy beer from supermarkets at a fraction of the cost of buying it in a pub. Introducing minimum pricing would go some way to stopping the supermarkets selling booze at below cost price. Pub closures are generally good for supermarkets - if someone doesn't have a pub nearby, they're more likely to buy booze from supermarkets!

2. Para-social relationships. Millions of people now spend hours every day contacting "friends" on sites such as Facebook, which they find much easier than having to deal with the ups and downs of meeting people face-to-face, i.e. real social interaction, what most of us, I suspect, actually go to the pub for (as well as decent beer, of course!).

3. Telly. 1,001 channels, huge screens and pseudo-cinema effects lure people into keeping their bums on the settee.

4. PubCos. Not only the notorious PubCos, but some of the breweries are now at it. Squeezing and squeezing the landlords/tenants until there's nothing left to give. I know the landlords of two pubs tied to a brewery (mustn't mention names!) that have just left their pubs due to huge rent increases from the brewery, and a third that's waiting for the rent review towards the end of the year.

Sorry for the doom and gloom, and the absence of any major solution. Just my take on things.

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21 Aug 11 - 08:53 AM (#3210313)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,Jon

My view when the ban came out was that it would accelerate an existing trend and prove to be the final nail in the coffin for many pubs and I think that has happened.

Whatever, the ban is not going to be reversed and (and I'm saying this as a smoker) even if it was reversed, I think it would be unlikely that many would return. In general, I think people will have settled into and be contented with their new habits.

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21 Aug 11 - 09:10 AM (#3210316)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,Jon

Re prices: I do think the pub prices are too high without looking at supermarket prices. As an example: If I was to shop at Woodefordes brewery as a retail customer, buying a 36 pint beer box of Wherry works out as £1.67 a pint. The last time I bought a pint of Wherry at a local (both to me and to the brewery btw) pub, it cost £3.10 a pint.

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21 Aug 11 - 11:25 AM (#3210366)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Richard Bridge

Jon, the money isn't making most pub tenants rich, it's going to the breweries and pubcos. And some of those are going broke, and others finding that property development brings in more cash.

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21 Aug 11 - 11:30 AM (#3210372)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Les in Chorlton

So, think about other things that people can do in pubs?

L ib C#

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21 Aug 11 - 01:33 PM (#3210423)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Howard Jones

In reply to Jon,

Yes but when you buy a pint in a pub you're paying for more than the beer. There are all the overheads of running the pub which have to be taken into account, not to mention a profit for the landlord. In return you get (or hope to) a change of scene, company, good atmosphere, maybe even music - all the things that go to make a good pub.

The probem is that the price difference has become too wide, because too many of the overheads have risen sharply, in particular rents. The pub industry doesn't seem to be very sustainable, but there appears still to be a large number of people wanting to go into it, so the pubcos can charge high rents and when the tenant goes bust they just find another, who may go bust themselves within a few months. if they don't and manage to make a success of it, the pubco then puts up the rent - it can't lose.

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21 Aug 11 - 03:03 PM (#3210484)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: PercyBysshe

Les asked what other things we could do in pubs.

How about board games - seriously! My husband refuses to play things like Trivial Pursuit or Scrabble with me. Would happily play in the pub! We also have a Lord of the Rings edition of Risk that has never been used ....

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21 Aug 11 - 03:20 PM (#3210497)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Les in Chorlton

Good point Mrs R, chess, bridge, happy families?

L in C#

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21 Aug 11 - 04:53 PM (#3210524)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: GUEST,Jon

Richard and Howard, my point is I consider supermarket prices a red herring.

Les, I do see where you are coming from but don't have answers.

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21 Aug 11 - 09:28 PM (#3210620)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Effsee

I pay £25 for a crate of 24 x 500mls of red tinnies delivered to my door by a local family grocer. Since the smoking ban ,that has been my choice. No contest.

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22 Aug 11 - 03:34 AM (#3210731)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Rob Naylor

Melodeonboy: 2. Para-social relationships. Millions of people now spend hours every day contacting "friends" on sites such as Facebook, which they find much easier than having to deal with the ups and downs of meeting people face-to-face, i.e. real social interaction, what most of us, I suspect, actually go to the pub for (as well as decent beer, of course!).

This is wrong, IMO....friends I've made on line (and there are many like me) actually for the hub of my social relationships. In 2 weeks I'll be at a gathering in Yorkshire of people from all over the country that I've met on a climbing website. We'll spend loads in the local pub. Last weekend I was camping in the Wye Valley with 41 other people that again, I "met" via a website. Abut half of them were people I was meeting "In Real Life" for the first time. Again, we spent loads in the local pub. Two weeks ago my military fitness group (BMF) organised a get-together in a pub here in Kent via Facebook, attended by 38 of us, all of whom communicate via Facebook. The music sessions I attend around Kent and Suex are often organised/ advertised through Facebook.

So AFAIC, Facebook and other social sites are only *enhancing* real-life social interaction, emphatically NOT reducing it!

I can accept your point about PubCos and squeezing of landlords and tenants with rents and high drinks prices, but I don't think drinks prices are putting most younger people off...they're just not visiting "trad" pubs. Locally to me, there's a decent "trad" pub with good ale about 300 yards away. Within another 200 yards there are 2 "trendy" pubs. One was converted from a "trad" pub a few years ago. If does no ale, only lager, cocktails and "shots". The one next to it has also gone over to mainly lager, plus lots of exotic "flavoured" beers.

Both these are packed virtually every night, despite having little or no real atmosphere. The trad pub is often 3/4 empty even on a Saturday night. Very quiet. When I've been in the other 2 with my BMF colleagues (the only times I go into them) there's absolutely no consciousness of price...I've seen people happily buying 2-3 rounds of 10 "Jager Bombs" and the like, at £70 a round. And the (mainly 30-somethings) I encounter at BMF, as well as training hard, "play" hard, too...we're usually there until these places close at 0200, and some of the people in the party will have consumed 12-15 drinks at around £5 or more a go. I'm usually the oldest in there, by a fair way, though!

All over this town , it's the trad pubs that are struggling. The "pile 'em in and sling as much as possible down your next" pubs that have "modernised" are making out like bandits. I know the owner of one of the "modern" pubs I mentioned above and since getting rid of most of his "decent" beer, packing the place out with lagers and cocktails, plus extending his opening hours from 11pm to 0200, he's more than quintupld his takings. And not being tied to a PubCo or brewery, he can source his drinks at best available prices, though he sells at similar prices to tied houses! Five years ago he was on the verge of closing. He's just bought a new Ferrari!

Go figure.

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22 Aug 11 - 07:56 AM (#3210790)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: melodeonboy

"All over this town , it's the trad pubs that are struggling. The "pile 'em in and sling as much as possible down your next (sic.)" pubs that have "modernised" are making out like bandits."

Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth in that, especially with the more recent style of drinking amongst younger people, i.e. stay in most of the week and binge-drink (ideally with something stronger than beer!) at the weekends.

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22 Aug 11 - 10:57 AM (#3210883)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: Smokey.

Alcoholism just isn't what it used to be.

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22 Aug 11 - 11:18 AM (#3210896)
Subject: RE: Keeping pubs open
From: melodeonboy

Good one! :)

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