The Cluny is one of Newcastle’s most loved pubs and independent live music venues. It’s one of Ouseburn’s go to haunts and it’s a venue that I personally can’t wait to head to as soon as there’s the slightest hint of warm weather.
Sitting in the middle of Ouseburn amongst its hidden gems and Newcastle’s wonderful city centre farm, it’s a pub that champions local indie businesses and does a lot for the community and music scene. Basically, it’s a really, really cool place to be and somewhere to shout about.
Sadly, under the current circumstances, The Cluny is struggling, and, like many independent venues at the moment, is facing uncertainty about its future. With a building to maintain, rent and bills to pay, excellent staff that they don’t want to disappoint, as well as a list of gigs that have had to be postponed, times are hard.
However, all is not lost as The Cluny have come up with a fantastic Crowdfunder to help fund their business until things can return to normal.
Their new initiative is “not asking for something for nothing”, so they are planning to hold four weekend comeback gigs, with acts tbc. They promise that the events will be cross genre, multi-band, all day events, featuring lots of local artists as well as more established bands and friends of The Cluny. Dates cannot be confirmed yet, but each of the weekends are set to be amazing celebrations of grass roots music venues, The Cluny’s staff and loyal customers, and, of course, returning to some sort of normality as the country recovers from this unstable and abnormal time.
The Cluny have stated on their Facebook page;
“We’re asking those who are able and want to support us to buy advance tickets for gigs that we’ll be hosting when we relaunch – lineups at this stage obviously TBC but we think you can trust us that they’ll be something special and will also be cross-genre… a celebration of what the Cluny is and what it will continue to be with your support and love.
Whilst the government has announced various initiatives, none of these are currently accessible and we need to be able to still pay ongoing large costs such as rent and insurance, etc whilst we are closed… we can’t get relief on these as of yet, if ever, we also want to get money owed to local suppliers as soon as possible and need money to tide over wage bills whilst waiting for government help. So none of any funds raised will go to waste. It’ll take quite some time for business to get back to normal even when we do reopen, and if we can manage to do so with the smallest amount of increased debt possible it will make survival both more feasible and indeed likely.”
If you’d like to purchase tickets, you can follow the link to their Crowdfunder page, here;
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/cluny-comeback-gigs-help-us-survive-covid-19
If you aren’t quite able to afford the full price of a ticket, but would like to make a smaller donation, then you can purchase Cluny merchandise and gift vouchers that can be spent at the bar once it reopens, here;
Our local and independent venues are a great asset to the North East, and something that our region should be incredibly proud of. Let’s help all of our indie venues as much as we can. Whether that’s by donating financially, or for free by showing love to them on social media.
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