What have you put in place at The Jazz Café in order to reopen on 17 May?
Operating at 1/3 capacity as a fully-seated venue across both floors, drinks and table service on the ground floor and the usual restaurant set up upstairs.
Have you made any changes at The Jazz Café since March last year that you’ll keep when all restrictions have been lifted?
Not much has changed since March 2020 in terms of the venue. We’ve certainly learnt a lot over the past year, and will use this to continue to improve the mechanics of the venue and the experience for our guests.
Do you think you’ll bring back a standing area when restrictions lift?
From the end of June to the end of July we’ll have a mixture of fully-seated and standing shows, before moving towards full cap shows only from there.
What have been the quickest selling events for 2021?
Our fully-seated shows up to the end of June have pretty much all sold out in a flash. People are dying to return to The Jazz Cafe, and are happy to come to whichever show still has availability at the moment! It’s been great to see a really positive response to some of our younger artists like Sophie Faith, who’s pretty much sold out her full-capacity show in July within a week.
Have you seen a change in booking patterns or customer demographics in comparison to pre-Covid times?
There’s certainly an urgency to book events from our guests at the moment, as for many it’ll be a first taste of live music since March 2020. No real change in demographics, we aim to be as diverse and inclusive in our programming as possible which leads to similar results in terms of customer demographics.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve received or can give to other venues for their own re-openings?
Being able to reopen is not just an amazing thing for you as a venue but also for your guests, fans, and staff, many of whom eat, sleep and breathe live music. It’s a great opportunity to be thankful to those people who keep the wheels turning in the background, and the people who make your venue what it is.
