Venuewatch: Brighton Hippodrome

Some good-ish venue-related news for a change: The Academy Group are considering converting the Brighton Hippodrome back into a theatre. Although, as it'll cost £9million, it's not clear if they can do it. The Evening Argus says they're hopeful:

Terry Carnes, UK property services director for Live Nation, which is working with AMG on the Hippodrome, said that so far £500,000 had been spent investigating howit could be turned into a music venue.

He said: “Simply making it soundproofed would cost an estimated £3 million and in total we would expect the project to cost around £9.5 million.

“We are only in the early stages at the moment but we would like to be the company that pulls it off.”

I guess you wouldn't sink half a million in unless you had a certain commitment. Before it fell to the bingo craze in 1967, it had hosted The Beatles and The Stones, so it's got some heritage heft to the case. Strictly speaking, though, it was built as an ice rink, so it's not quite going back to its original purpose.

The Academy Is now renamed

Not that anyone with any sense ever called the Academy chain venues The Carling Academy chain anyway, but in a spot of horse-trading, the places are all now to be sponsored by O2 instead.

Rather less thrillingly, apparently part of the deal is that O2 customers get "priority" for tickets at the venues. That's exactly what bands need in their audience - a crowd who are there on the basis of what phone network they're with rather than the love of their music.

The Homing League

Good news and bad news for Sheffielders: The Human League is heading to do a hometown gig; the bad news is, it's to mark the opening of a Carling Academy in the city. April 20th marks both the gig and the further march of the same-same-same venue chain.