Artrix Arts Centre in the West Midlands calls in receivers, as the Coronavirus shutdown puts the venue out of business.
All around the country, independent arts centres are facing immense struggles in the face of the Coronavirus lockdown. That their outgoings remain, but income has dropped to zero. And here in the West Midlands, where Film Stories is based, a wonderful centre has announced that it’s gone out of business.
Artrix Arts Centre in Bromsgrove played host to film, theatre, local shows, stand-up comedy and more, and was a wonderful example of a community arts centre. Yesterday, in a post to its website and email to its patrons, it announced that it’s had to cease trading.
Like many independent arts venues, Artrix lived a hand to mouth existence courtesy of funding cuts over the past few years. And whilst it had taken measures to try and hold off the impact of the ongoing shutdown, the venue doesn’t qualify for any government support, and can’t cover the mothballing costs of £10,000 a month.
Its statement read, “with no income since 16 March, and no certainty of returning to normal ticket sales and catering income for at least 6 months, our assets do not cover our liabilities and we are therefore technically insolvent”.
Those holding tickets to Artrix shows will be contacted by the administrator in due course. A full statement has been issued here.
We fear Artrix won’t be last, unless something can be put together to keep venues like these going. At a time when one or two billionaires are requesting government bailouts for their business, surely something can be done to save venues such as these?
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
See one of our live shows, details here.
