Music venue’s plea for public support
A LIVE music venue in Swansea has launched an appeal for help as the impact of coronavirus fears and storm damage have left it facing an uncertain future.
The Bunkhouse has organised a crowdfunding page asking for people to donate whatever they can to try to ensure the future of the Park Street venue, which opened in 2018 and regularly sees live bands perform.
It comes as the venue has admitted that the Covid-19 scare has had an impact on its schedule, with acts cancelled, and damage caused as a result of Storm Dennis has also hit it hard.
An attempt is being made to raise £5,000 which would cover bills, staff, and lost ticket sales for shows that do not go ahead.
A post on its Facebook page read: “We’re not one to usually ask for help, we are far too proud and stubborn for that.
“We weren’t overly vocal about the damage caused recently due to the bad weather as we didn’t want to take away from the severity of the damage to our venue friends in the Valleys.
“We just buckled down and got contractors and friends in, and have been doing our utmost to pay to repair the damage ourselves, which is proving increasingly more and more expensive as we’ve had to essentially have our entire roof replaced, new electrics throughout, new plastering due, lots of drying out and damp proofing, and this is before any of the cosmetic damages.
“This was tough, and now with all these event cancellations because of the Covid-19 scare, it’s just getting silly.
“Day after day we are having acts cancelled due to Covid-19 fears, from local acts to touring bands travelling around the country and those coming to us from outside the UK.
“We have had so many cancellations that we honestly don’t know how we are going to get through this without gigs, and this is just the start.”
The statement added that the whole entertainment industry had “a rocky road ahead of us all.”
Unfortunately, like a lot of venues, we don’t have the support of a large music promoter, and we most certainly aren’t a chain, or a pub selling food or doing other things that we can fall back on,” it added.
“We are a dedicated live music venue run purely by a group of music enthusiasts who constantly punch above our weight to bring the best live acts and performances to Swansea in our little venue.
“We are a communitybased venue, and we fully rely on the music community of Swansea to support us. If things do became bleak, which it is looking like, we could end up closing.
“We wanted to know if the music community and our patrons would help us keep The Bunkhouse lights on and continue to bring a constant array of live music and acts during and after these bleak times ahead? “This isn’t just our future, it’s yours,” added the venue.