Boards
Plum Promotions have announced their split from the Water Rats
(LONDONCENTRIC... sort of)
For anyone not on their mailing list...
Dear All
It is with great regret that we announce that as of 15th August 2006,
Plum Music will no longer be overseeing the events at the Water Rats
Theatre. The event on the 14th will be our last show. Our events in
other venues will not be affected.
After nearly nine years of fantastic shows, consistently high quality
bookings, and an unfailing attention to detail, the landlord has given
us notice of his intention to bring in a new promoter without consulting
us. In short, we were kept in the dark about his intentions until the
deal was done, at which point it was too late for us to have any
influence.
This decision, and in particular the manner in which our dismissal has
been orchestrated, has come as a complete shock to us. Despite an
exceptionally hot July, and of course a certain tournament in Germany,
our own figures show that the amount of people coming into the venue has
been steady, and matches up well to comparisons for previous years. As a
company, we have continued to grow and thrive with the Water Rats at our
core - the landlord however, cites our work in other venues as having
been detrimental to business at the Water Rats - despite the fact that
this work has increased both our website traffic and our membership
scheme tenfold, with the Water Rats itself still as popular within the
industry as it has ever been.
Ostensibly, this decision seems to us to be counter-productive and
irrational. However, there may have been other factors that have caused
him to come the conclusion that the venue will be better off without us.
For this reason we respect his decision. That said, the manner in which
it was made has destroyed all trust between us. Rather than making clear
the absolute urgency of the situation and sitting down with us to
formulate a solution to our mutual benefit, he has chosen a path that in
our view benefits neither of us . Throughout our tenure, our loyalty to
both the landlord and the venue has been unwavering, and we have worked
closely with him over many years to ensure that any problems that have
arisen have always been solved together, to everyone's benefit. This
makes these recent actions even harder to stomach - all good will has
been destroyed, and, as a result, we feel we can no longer work with the
landlord, nor have any dealings with his choice of replacement promoter.
For this reason we feel it is best that we remove ourselves as quickly
as possible from the equation altogether in order to protect our own
business and the solid reputation we have built up over the years. We
are left with no option but to leave with immediate effect. The
thousands of unsigned bands that have worked with us, and the thousands
of music fans that joined our membership scheme and visit our website
every week will know that whilst we have always run a tight ship with a
solid business model, it is our passion for new music and its promotion
that has been the driving force behind everything that we do. We believe
in running our business ethically, so whilst it would make more sense
commercially for us to see out our notice, we cannot allow ourselves to
be further involved in a venue where we feel such a philosophy is at
risk of being compromised. All of this has been incredibly difficult to
accept, particularly as we have been given no time to prepare for it.
What makes it worse is the the knock on effect it will have on others -
not just on some of the bands we have booked, but particularly on the
fantastic, hardworking team we have put together during our tenure, that
have served us so loyally over the years. We can only hope everyone will
understand that having been presented with a fait accompli, these are
decisions that have been forced upon us.
All of our staff and equipment will be leaving. We are currently in the
process of negotiating a new home, which we hope to announce shortly.
This will be a completely clean break. We gather that a separate
statement will be made by the new promoters regarding their plans. We
hope that their resolve matches their ambition since it would be a great
shame to see the venue return to the doldrum state in which we found it
at the end of 1997. The venue today stands as one of the country's most
popular - a far, far better state than it was when we arrived. Building
and maintaining this has taken a huge amount of effort, and for our
part, we have eight and a half years, two and a half thousand gigs, and
somewhere in the region of four hundred thousand happy punters to look
back on. We leave the venue with a huge number of happy memories, and a
tremendous sense of pride in all that we have achieved. We'd like to
take this opportunity to thank everyone that has been involved with us
in any capacity over this time period, and we sincerely hope that we
will work together again in the future. If we have not managed to speak
to you in person yet, we apologise - as you can imagine, things have
been a little hectic. Any further questions, messages of support or
chocolates you might wish to send, the address is provided below...
As a great man once said, all things must pass. See you all on the other
side, fitter, stronger and wiser.
Allan, Sarah, Matthew and everyone at Plum Music.