Noel Nevin, Cavern
The small music venue owner and promoter on covid-19’s impact.
Last spring when covid arrived, what steps did you take to continue staging shows at your venue, The Cavern in South-West London?
I tried to carry on as best I could. I still put bands on five or six nights a week until the day we were told to close. We didn’t have limits or restrictions at first, so I just carried on until I couldn’t – after the first lockdown and we were allowed to open again with restricted numbers and having to serve food etcetera. As a recognised grass-roots music venue, I was allowed to open without serving food, provided I charged to get in and only opened to put live shows on to a limited number of people. So I put bands on every day, opened at five p.m. and closed at ten p.m., as the curfew made us do. I was full to capacity [about 50 people] practically every night during this period.