Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Pub’s owners in crowdfunder bid
A POPULAR pub and live music venue has had to resort to crowdfunding in a bid to survive.
Since the start of the lockdown, The Twa Tams in Perth has relied on a grant from Perth and Kinross Council and the Scottish Arts Council.
But the venue has been unable to get other grants or take out bounce back loans, and has run out of money.
Owners Sandy Stirton and Chris Woods want to crowdfund £15,000 to get the business afloat through December and January.
Chris said: “We closed down the day before St Paddy’s day and that is a big day for us. It was nice when we were able to open our beer garden up, but that on its own was not profitable.
“We tried to do takeaway before too but didn’t have any luck with that.
“We all thought this would only be for three weeks, and here we are nine months later.
“This is a proper community pub and we can’t just shut the business down then have 100 people saying ‘why didn’t you ask for our help?’
“Crowdfunding will give people the chance to come back one day.”
Sandy said: “We have never done this before because we believe you go out and work hard, get the money in and then reinvest it.
“But right now we don’t have access to anything and we can’t open up at all because we are a wet-led pub. Before our capacity was 370 and now it is only about 100 and we have seven members of staff.
“We are talking about reducing their hours and that is a position we never wanted to be in.”
The pair are also planning a Christmas Eve and Hogmanay party with live music from Perthshire bands being streamed online and are selling tickets to bring money in.
And those who pledge to the crowdfunder will be entered into a prize draw for a hamper.
People who pledge more than £100 will be given access to the festive parties as well as two tickets to the pub’s reopening party, which Sandy and Chris are hoping to run in March 2021.