Author: exchange

As a Community Benefit Society, Exchange’s rules require us to have open membership. It is fairly commonplace for Societies to temporarily close membership in it’s first year whilst it is being established.

Our original plan was to reopen our membership following the first AGM in April. Following the major disruption caused by the Coronovirus Covid 19 virus we are aware that some kind people are looking for ways to support music venues during this difficult time.

Money raised through new members joining will be used to mitigate the losses suffered due to CV19 and allow us to support our staff and independent contractors in the music industry who are reliant on Exchange. You can find out more about becoming a member at the link below

Become a Member of Exchange

We are following the advice of the Chief Medical Officer for the UK and Public Health England. As of this time our plan is to try and remain open as much as possible. If that advice changes for any reason, we will immediately respond to that to ensure the safety of our community.

We also wanted to reassure you that if for any reason an event is cancelled then any advance tickets will be refunded and that you can still buy with confidence. We are being pragmatic and are aware that some touring artists may choose to cancel or postpone shows & we will let you know if that happens.

We are also announcing that for anyone who has purchased tickets but has been told to self isolate and cant attend, we will offer refunds if we are able to so please get in touch.

Like many other people and businesses the financial and social challenges and threats we face have been increased greatly and we want to make sure that we are doing the right thing whilst also helping to support, musicians, promoters, other venues and our customers as best we can. We may make some changes to stock and business practices to help do this so please bear with us. We hope to see you soon and thanks for reading this and supporting us.

If you want to support us during this difficult time and aren’t able to get along to a gig or our cafe, then please consider becoming a member of Exchange or buying an Exchange t-shirt and / or tote bag!

Exchange staff recently completed Good Night Out training.

GNO accreditation is a simple, three step process to help venue’s transform how it responds to sexual harassment and assault.

Last night at the 2019 Bristol Loves Awards Exchange was awarded ‘Best Live Music Venue’.

Upon receiving the award Luke said “It’s nice to be in a space where its independent businesses can network together. To be honest we were surprised we even nominated and we didn’t expect it at all. We honestly thought it was a joke at first when we’d received the information that we’d won, so it’s definitely a nice surprise.”

Other great Bristol Music Venues to be nominated included SWX and The Fleece, whilst we were also happy to see Mothers Ruin and The Gryphon also recognised as winners in other categories.

Using funds from our 2018 Community Share Offer we have reopened the Basement Stage in the venue. The (re)opening weekend took place between 22nd – 25th August and featured events from Specialist Subject, Stolen Body Records and Breakfast Records amongst others. In a completely different guise to how it originally existed, the intimate set up has a capacity of 60 and exists to serve developing artists and promoters. We are planning to further develop the space to improve facilities over the next year. The space is available to hire for cheap – For bookings please email iwan[at]exchangebristol[dot]com

As part of the development we also helped to rebuild Joe’s Garage within the same basement. Check out the renovation below.

Using the finance we raised from our Community Share Issue we have made major improvements to both our stage lighting and air conditioning. Our stage lighting was installed by Bristol company Re-Production and is a massive upgrade from what was in the venue before. Some of our old lights will be reused elsewhere in the venue (more news on that soon) whilst the rest were donated to Filwood Community Centre.

For our latest Tech Spec please email iwan[at]exchangebristol[dot]com