00:00I'm Dominic and I'm the co-founder of the Electric Group which owns this building and I've owned this building since 2016 and today we've managed to take possession of it and now we're going to be proceeding with a refurbishment of this building which will open as a new music venue and club in Sheffield in February 26.
00:20So when we arrived yesterday we were faced with a slightly unexpected situation which was that the lead mill had removed all the doors to the building which was pretty extreme and so we were actually expecting to get the keys tomorrow night so it was a slightly unanticipated problem but I'm delighted to say that our builders who are Sheffield firm and all my friends and colleagues in Sheffield all came together and we all managed to protect the building.
00:50But inside it's been stripped back to a shell which we always expected to happen and yeah there's no stage, there's no dance floor, there's no toilets and so now we've got a big job in reinstating it and creating what I would describe as a 21st century touring stand-up live music venue.
01:09I don't think I've ever been concerned that we wouldn't finally achieve our objective of taking over the building because we've always had an intention to operate it as a music venue.
01:23I'm not a property developer, I'm not somebody knocking down buildings and building flats, I've spent the last 30 years protecting heritage spaces and music venues pretty successfully and we've got an amazing team and we've got some great venues around the country so no I think we always were going to get here but it's taken a bit longer than we thought.
01:45I think that music venues move with the times, they have to be reinvented usually once every generation or every 20 to 30 years and certainly that's true of all my other venues around the country.
01:59Brixton, Brixton, it was the Ace which was David Bowie rock venue, reinvented as the Fridge and then reinvented in 2010 as Electric Brixton.
02:09In Newcastle we have the Majestic which then became the O2 Academy which then became my venue NX, same in Bristol.
02:16I think music venues evolve and this is, the Electric Sheffield will be what I believe to be sort of almost the fourth reincarnation or the fourth cultural life of this particular building.
02:29The first cultural life was the Esquire on the first floor which was a jazz club, the second cultural life was the Lead Mill charity Adrian Vinken and Robert Noble, the third was Mr Mills and his period occupying it and running it as a profitable club space and then the fourth is going to be the newly refurbished Electric Sheffield.
02:50So I think this space is always going to be at the heart of music in Sheffield and our job is to just make sure that we refurbish it so that we're putting the artist and the music fan in Sheffield front and centre to make sure that the experience is amazing.
