Showcasing Small Spaces: Interview with The Robin, Wolverhampton

According to the Music Venue Trust, many of the UK's grassroots music venues are closing at an alarming rate. Statistics from 2023 showed that, last year, two venues per week closed on average across the country, with a staggering 1-in-3 grassroots venues being loss-making.

These small venues are so special, and incredibly important: to local economies, to the entire live music scene, and for being a place for artists to connect with audiences at any point in their career, whether it's their 5th or 500th show.

Without these spaces, some of our biggest and brightest musicians wouldn't be headlining festivals or selling out arenas today. Their success comes from the ground up, and here at Gigantic Tickets, we're working hard to showcase some of the most important and vital small venues that we work with across the UK.

As part of our Intimate Venues series, we've spoken to some of our friends to find out what makes their venues special and what you can do to help your local grassroots scene.

This week, we spoke to Jack at The Robin in Wolverhampton.

Hi Jack! Tell us, what's the best part of your job working as part of a small venue?

The best part for me is helping to bring music to the local and wider community. As a small venue with a storied history in Bilston and Wolverhampton (Slade used to practice here back in the day!) 

It’s really important to us to be able to put on great shows for people, whether that’s the top tribute acts in the country or bringing original artists to a local venue, we want to give as many people access to live music as possible.

It’s always great to see all the positive reviews after the shows and see that people had a really great time.

If you had to name one thing that makes your venue special, or stand out from the rest, what would it be?

The main thing that comes to mind is that we have a hotel directly next to our venue! This means that you don’t have to wait around for expensive taxis and Ubers after a show. You can walk directly out of the venue into a nice comfy bed!

How can gig-goers and local communities help support small venues more, and why is this important?

The biggest thing gig goers can do is purchase tickets in advanced! It’s so important for venues to know they’re going to get people turning up to a show so it’s financially viable and can still go ahead. It’s really common these days to see shows being cancelled and postponed, and the majority of the time it’s unfortunately due to low ticket sales.

Even small things such as sharing the event on social media and letting people know who might be interested go a long way in helping to support small venues reach new audiences.

It’s really important to support small independent venues as they will sadly begin to disappear without that support. 

What's the best show you've seen in your venue?

For me personally, it would be Terry Reid. Having seen him several times he always puts on a spectacular show and has a few surprises thrown in. The last time he played here was made even better by being supported by up and coming Blues artist Connor Selby (who blew me away more than Terry did!)

Being sat in the crowd to see so many people discover and become new fans of a young artist like Conor was a really great feeling and made the show even better for me. 

What's the biggest success story you can think from a show at your venue?

In terms of a successful show, it would be Alexander O’Neal coming up in May. This show was the fastest we’ve ever had to reach sell out in the entire history of the venue, and we cannot wait for it to happen! After all that was involved in making it happen (quite a bit of stress!) the response from gig goers and the local community was phenomenal!

What are you most looking forward to in the next 12 months?

I’m looking forward to announcing some of the bigger shows and artists we’ve got in the works! Which of course is top secret for now 😉 

In all seriousness though we are bringing a much wider variety of shows to our venue over the next 12 months. Whether that’s different genres, up and coming artists and big name bands, we’re really excited to be able to share all of this with our audience.

BROWSE UPCOMING SHOWS AT THE ROBIN

Do you love discovering the next big thing in music? Are you happiest in a sweaty basement or intimate club venue hearing the best emerging acts before they hit the limelight?

Check out our list of Intimate Venues Hosting The Next Big Thing and book tickets to a show near you today.

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