If you’ve hit the streets of Fortitude Valley
recently you may have taken a stroll past Foundry Records on Wickham Street next
to the iconic The Elephant hotel.
What you might not know
is that Foundry Records is an extension of Brisbane’s latest music venue The
Foundry.
This trend of business
amalgamation among Brisbane music venues is on the rise and can also be seen at
The Triffid with its inclusion of The Café and Beergarden.
Founder of City and
Sound, Leith Jacobs, has observed this growing trend and puts it down to clever
business.
“Venues such as The Foundry and The Triffid are fairly
new and I think they knew that being another square room with a bar and big
speakers wasn't going to cut it.
“The inclusion of extra features like cafes and record
shops that run during the day is a well thought-out one, I think, and is due in
part to the experienced teams behind each venue,” said Jacobs.
Jacobs goes on to recall a number of
Brisbane music venues that had to face closure recently and believes that
including other forms of business allows venue owners to rely on other streams
of income.
“Live music is a niche in Brisbane when compared to the
club scene and having other streams of revenue is a safer bet for music
venues,” he said.
The Foundry is one of Brisbane’s newer music
venues to open its doors and also includes Foundry Studios and Foundry Records.
Venue booker at The
Foundry, Patrick Balfe, says the decision to include Foundry Records was to
fill a space in the venue.
“We had a spare space on street level below the venue
and there wasn’t a lot of places to get good coffee on our street,” says Balfe.
Martine Cotton, manager of Foundry
Records, agrees with this and adds that there was more importantly a void to
fill in Fortitude Valley, “the space was created to
fill something of a void in the Valley; a place for music people to hang during
the day, having meetings, listening to music and supporting local bands,” he
says.
Supporting local musicians and bands has
always been a mantra of Fortitude Valley music venues.
The inclusion of Foundry Records at The
Foundry encourages this supportive environment for the community.
“It helps builds a sense of collaborative community for the music
industry,” says Cotton.
“The whole building is a collaborative hub – all our residents, bands
and friends get a chance to bounce ideas off each other, work together, hang
out and see live music,” agrees Balfe.
From a business
perspective Balfe says that opening a record and coffee shop during the day
promotes the venue as well as giving people a collaborative space in Fortitude
Valley.
“It was also a good way to spread
awareness of the venue during the day and have a chilled out space for people
to have meetings and listen to records,” he said.
Brisbane musician, Kurt Pitman, says that these kinds of venues “simply
help the most important thing which is crowd numbers”.
Although positive about the opening of new venues, Pitman is worried that
these venues may be attracting patrons who aren’t there to appreciate live
music.
“I think it depends on the physical integration of the spaces,” says
Pitman.
“If, for instance, the place has a bar and dining area that is part of
the music venue then that’s really only a positive as patrons of one are
patrons of both.
“But if they are separated it doesn’t really contribute to the music
side of things and might even detract as music fans are less likely to go to
venues full of people who don’t appreciate live music,” said Pitman.
Jacobs agrees that these additional
attractions to the venue will in course attract further patrons but is more
positive about the possible turn out, “I think extra services will attract customers who
might not otherwise step into that music venue and they might end up stumbling
across their new favorite band”.
Although we’re seeing
further additions to the traditional idea of Brisbane’s music venues it’s hard
to say how long they’ll last.
“More venues ultimately means spreading the audience
thinner.
“Those with less business will eventually
become unsustainable and the great birth and rebirth of venues will begin
again,” said Jacobs.
