00:00Hi, my name is Gail and I am the manager of the underground live music venue and nightclub in Bradford
00:06and also the platform bar that is attached to the underground.
00:09We are a live music venue situated in Bradford, covering multi-genres from rock and metal, hip-hop, soul, dance music
00:19and various other different genres including acoustic, country, etc.
00:23We provide platforms for grassroots musicians across the district and across the North of England and beyond
00:31as well as bringing in Torrid names such as Lucy Spraggan, The Wombats and more.
00:36We have been here for 8 years and in the 8 years we have grown and evolved to where we are now
00:43with 2 bars, food menu 2 days a week and anything up to 5 gigs a week
00:49from historically where it would just mostly be 1 or 2 a week.
00:54It has been a rollercoaster over the last 8 years and not always easy
00:58however we genuinely believe in Bradford and the music scene in Bradford is very important to all of us on the management team.
01:07We have obviously had the rollercoaster that was Covid in the middle of that and being closed down
01:14due to the size of venue that we are not being able to offer the same facilities when we came back out of lockdown
01:21for social distancing and such like however we have got through that okay
01:27and we are looking forward to 2025 City of Culture year which is coming up next year.
01:33We have started with preparations and we think it's going to be a great thing for Bradford.
01:41We see at the moment that there is a lot of negativity in the local area.
01:46Granted there is a lot of road works going on, there is a lot of building works and such like
01:51as we prepare for that City of Culture year and make sure that the city and the city's infrastructure is ready
01:57and there is a lot of negativity about how it is destroying the city centre.
02:04Nobody wants to go out in Bradford, rumours of it being unsafe and various other different narratives that are being perpetuated
02:12however we disagree. I work in the city centre in the night time economy and have done for over 10 years now.
02:20I feel safe in the city centre, I know a lot of people in the city centre and I know that they feel safe in the city centre
02:28and everyone looks out for everyone including customers who might not be as familiar with the area we are happy to look out for everyone.
02:34We have in Bradford, I believe we have in the city centre some really cool quirky unique little businesses
02:47and yes of course we would love to add to that, we would love more people to take a chance on opening businesses
02:53and music venues and various other different things but as far as music venues go, in the city centre we have put on some great gigs
03:01Tickles Live Music Hall, the 1 in 12 historic punk venue in Bradford, Night Train have had some great announcements this week as well
03:09and that is just four music venues. We also have some great bars and restaurants, Mamma Mia has been there for 40 plus years
03:20Pizza Pieces which is a cute little 30 plus year old little Italian pizzeria, Peacocks Indian Street Food
03:30there are so many different places that you can go, try all the different cuisines, see all the unique little bars with their own quirky little personalities
03:38Bar and Fable Record Cafe, all these really great places to go, there is cool quirky little shops as well, little retail
03:47and there is a lot going for it, there is a lot of cool events going on every weekend, if you like raves, if you like metal gigs, if you like country music gigs
03:56there is lots going on and there is something for everyone and we think that this gets overlooked sometimes
04:06and people look at things that could be's and has what we could have and we don't look at what we do have
04:15which is I think a really really cool little offering and it is only going to get better with Dallas Street Food Market, Bradford Live opening
04:22when they have managed to finish the work on there and obviously when we have our pedestrianised areas and the road works are finished
04:29so we genuinely believe Bradford is going to be brilliant, I already believe Bradford is already brilliant
04:38and we put a post out this week because we just got sick of the negative narratives on the local Telegraph Anargus website
04:50every time someone posts a positive story people jump all over it with negative remarks and stuff
05:00and I just, after last week when we had caught a load of people travelling from Glasgow for a gig, we had people come from Preston, Clitheroe, Manchester
05:10we had an American touring artist in our venue from Massachusetts, we had so much people from the outside coming to visit, staying in our hotels
05:23visiting our restaurants and bars and telling us how cool it is, in Bradford I just, this week we have decided we have had enough
05:32we are not going to accept any negativity in Bradford anymore and we would like to encourage everyone to come and join us
05:41in looking at the positives in the future because negativity breeds negativity and that is not something we are willing to feed into anymore
05:50so here we posted a post on Facebook about this and currently sitting at over 600 impressions on that plus comments and shares
06:00and I do think that Bradford is ready to accept some positivity into its life so I'm looking forward to the future
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