Three Weeks Left To Save The Black Heart Music Venue – 57% Target Hit
Written by Johnson Stephen on February 26, 2021
The owners of ‘The Black Heart’ music venue in Camden London, have issued the following message ”We are The Black Heart and we are in trouble. We are an independently owned ‘Destination’ Live music venue and bar for people who like Heavy music. Since opening in August 2009, we have hosted over 2,500 shows. But, we have an insurmountable – and ever-growing – mountain of debt, and our landlords are threatening us with legal action.
To help us raise the £150,000 we need to survive, we’ve been running a Crowdfunder campaign and there are just over 3 weeks left. We’ve had incredible support from The Black Heart community – and we would like to thank every single person who’s donated. It has been truly overwhelming. We’ve been running the entire campaign on our own, relying on social media and donated prizes from some amazing friends, and the response has blown us away, especially at a time when we know money is tight.
In total so far, we’ve managed to raise £86,659. It’s a huge sum – and we’ve passed the halfway mark – but we still have a long way to go.
The roadmap for lifting Lockdown in the UK suggests indoor hospitality might re-open on 17 May 2021, but social restrictions won’t be completely over until 21 June 2021 at the earliest. We want to re-open safely and we want to do what is right for our staff, customers, artists and society in general – but every week we remain closed or restricted, we build up thousands more in debt. The £150,000 we need to raise is simply to cover the build-up of debt – the bills that have been mounting up while closed or heavily restricted for over a year. It is impossible for us to trade profitably until all restrictions are lifted.
But now we know that we might be able to re-open on 17 May (and potentially even be back to normal in June), it has never been more urgent to ‘Save The Black Heart’! We have a huge gig calendar ready to go, both socially distanced and full capacity, but if we don’t meet our Crowdfunder target, there will be no gigs at all. Ever again.
It’s not just about us, it’s about the UK underground music scene and the amazing community that has supported us so far. London and Camden won’t be the same without us.”
The Crowdfunder is Live until the 23rd March 2021 at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/savetheblackheart/backers#start
