Meet Dugald McArthur, managibg director, The Barras

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00I'm Dougal MacArthur. I'm the great-grandson of Maggie McIver who founded this place.

00:27I've been coming here since five years, six years old, during the summer months when we moved to Canada.

00:33I'm the managing director. I took over that title in March.

00:39I think most people know who Maggie McIver is.

00:42Back in the days when women couldn't own property, couldn't vote, and she had a vision, an entrepreneurial,

00:49didn't have a lot of education either, but she had determination and she had a way of making things work.

00:55I've seen all the articles about being one of the top people, top 100 in Glasgow,

01:01along with all the engineers and the Kelvins and the Watts and Alexander Graham Bell and et cetera.

01:08So I think she is recognized, but on a softer basis.

01:12I can remember the discussion when my uncle came back from Las Vegas and said,

01:16we're going to put a neon sign in front of the building that will attract people.

01:20And, you know, everyone thought he was nuts.

01:23Well, time has showed it wasn't nuts. It actually put a branding on the building.

01:29And yet, Victor never went to university to understand about branding and marketing and that,

01:36but he just saw how it worked in Las Vegas.

01:39And at the time this was put up, it was bigger than a Coca-Cola sign in Piccadilly.

01:44And, you know, we're still managing to keep it going.

01:48I'm assuming at some time we won't be able to get neon.

01:51But, you know, that sign is copied by all sorts of people.

01:56It's a backdrop, something to be, you know, proud of.

02:01And that's only existed since the mid-80s.

02:04I can also think of the discussions in my Uncle John's house,

02:08who was one of the other managing directors of the decision to end ballroom dancing.

02:14Because this place with just a couple hundred people in it, it's not fun.

02:19And, you know, that had to happen.

02:23And then, you know, what next?

02:26And, you know, we can thank a bunch of promoters and others

02:31for recognizing that this is a great sound room.

02:36Because it was a live band before.

02:38So it's really still live entertainment.

02:41And there's still dancing going on here.

02:43Just an entirely different style of dancing.

02:46I see something we can all be passionate about.

02:49And renewing this icon and keeping it going in a slightly different direction.

02:54But actually keeping the history and respecting that.

02:59And from that, building new memories and new history for the future.

03:04And some people say, well, it's not the old Barrows.

03:08But we've got to remember in the 60s, there was over a million people in Glasgow.

03:12And today it's about 635,000 approximately.

03:17Entirely different mix of people.

03:19If you think of the old days, Glasgow did not have shopping on Sundays.

03:23So for many people, this is where you bought clothes, where you bought food,

03:28and you brought other things.

03:30But with Sunday shopping everywhere,

03:32and the introduction of different types of retailing and discounting,

03:36many of the market spaces that were here before just have disappeared,

03:39which causes the need for the reinvention.

03:43And I think you would see that we think Foodie and the Barrows back in 1960 would be a steak pie.

03:53It wouldn't be fish and chips because that would be too hard to do.

03:57But, you know, today we've got a wide cross-section of food that's here,

04:01and we're attracting more people in that direction.

04:04And also you're seeing new businesses pop up around here,

04:07sort of a new nucleus in the East End of Glasgow.

04:11Like, it's amazing how many people walk in here and go,

04:14oh my God, I was here 40 years ago, and it hasn't really changed,

04:18and I can still have fun in my 60s.

04:21That's why one of our mantras is about inclusion.

04:24Because if you've got to include everybody in their community

04:28and give them an opportunity to be here, then I think you've got success.

04:33And the same thing applies in the market,

04:35and that's why we have some special events.

04:37You know, we've had the Hong Kong market,

04:40we've had a fish market as well.

04:43The success will be that this place is still vibrant

04:46and still enjoyed and beloved by Glaswegians and beyond.

04:50Some people might believe that the success of the Bowers

04:55and the Barrowland Ballroom would be self-perpetuating.

04:58You don't really need to change much,

05:00but what do you need to do to steer it in the right direction?

05:03If you fail to reinvest in and keep it relevant,

05:07it will become a relic.

05:09And a relic has no life.

05:11Would I love to be able to look from up there

05:13or maybe down there in the 200th anniversary?

05:17I will be very pleased that this place is still a living institution.

05:23If it's just a museum, then I would be very saddened.

05:27But this is bigger than what my great-grandmother could have imagined.

05:32And maybe she did.

05:33But it's just kind of remarkable that this is kind of on my lap.

05:38And you can't just be a custodian because that won't work.

05:43You've got to push a little harder in slightly different directions.

05:46Our ceiling here in the ballroom, it's original.

05:50The only thing that's been done has been touched up with the original colours.

05:54You know, the stars are still there.

05:57You know, we can't do much with that.

06:00And the reason is it's like a violin.

06:02It resonates music.

06:04So you change the acoustics in here dramatically when you tinker too much.

06:10I think part of the magic of this place is the myth and little stories and people adding on.

06:17It's like that party game where we start in one corner and we whisper in each other's ears.

06:22We try to see at the end of the night whether the story's still the same.

06:25It won't be.

06:26Well, this place has got more myths.

06:29It's like the Loch Ness Monster of Glasgow.

06:31How would you like to see the virus help facilitate wider societal change?

06:35So if I was to step back and I'm going to go down to Ragile Street, it comes to a sudden end.

06:42Then there's a few buildings that have been invested in like the Social Hub.

06:48Then there's another gap.

06:50And then there's some successful bars, Buck's and Maggie's.

06:54Then there's a bit of a void.

06:56And then there's a little nucleus around Glasgow Cross.

06:59Then there's a bit of a void.

07:01And then you come to here.

07:03So if you look at what needs to happen is you've got to get connectivity of this area back to the city.

07:10The regeneration of places to stay is critical.

07:15And that will expand the footprint.

07:18And working with other businesses in the neighborhood, I think, becomes important.

07:23Then the neighborhood becomes a destination.

07:25To be a destination, you need that thing that I call merchantainment,

07:30which is you want to buy something, you want to eat something, you want to be entertained.

07:35And you come in for one of those and you do all three, eventually do all three.

07:39The market did get into great decline before COVID.

07:42And rekindling it in a new front was the only option.

07:46The passion for this place and the people that come up here, I wouldn't know how to build it.

07:52You know, I said the other day, and I would say this to anybody, if you had to restart your business from scratch,

08:00how would you ever rebuild this and capture the hundred years of tradition and the iconic status?

08:07It just doesn't happen.

08:08I bump into people and they say, you in the Barris?

08:12Well, you know, my mother and father met at the Barris.

08:16There's people in Canada.

08:17Thank you so much for your time.

08:18Thank you very much for coming in.

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