For a metropolis with a world popularity constructed on music, Manchester is enjoying a dangerously offbeat tune. Whereas its legacy continues to be being shouted about in documentaries and tourism campaigns, grassroots music venues are being erased from the panorama in actual time, with barely a nod to their historic, social, or inventive relevance. Retro Bar is the most recent identify to be scribbled onto the cultural kill checklist — a venue with 35 years of service to Manchester’s subcultures, music scenes, and artistic lifeblood. And now? It’s scheduled for demolition. As a result of somebody determined a multi-billion-pound science redevelopment mattered greater than the group it’s going to displace.
This isn’t nearly a basement bar. It’s a couple of cultural artery being clamped shut by fits and a nefarious sample of neglect, short-sightedness and cultural vandalism that’s unfolding throughout the nation. It must be referred to as out for what it’s: a systemic concern that devalues tradition in favour of sterile “progress.”
The Retro Bar Case: A Wake-Up Name Disguised as a Eulogy
Retro Bar’s impending closure in July 2025 ought to by no means have been on the playing cards. Not in a metropolis that claims to champion music. Not when over 200 gigs a yr have rung out from its two flooring, drawing in over 20,000 punters yearly. Not when it gave early phases to Frank Turner, The whole lot The whole lot and have become the birthplace of The Chemical Brothers’ DJ profession.
However the £1.7 billion Sister Masterplan between Bruntwood SciTech and The College of Manchester has different concepts. Concepts which, conveniently, didn’t embrace any significant safety or relocation for Retro. In accordance with the venue group, the 2 websites provided as alternate options have been unworkable. They weren’t provided relocation – they have been provided what amounted to enterprise funeral prices. A nod, a handshake, and a payout for winding the whole lot down. A payout which wouldn’t cowl half the prices of restarting someplace new.
The venue group have executed the legwork. They’ve scouted new places. They’ve stayed in conversations. However conversations are meaningless when one occasion holds the facility to bulldoze, and the opposite is left screaming into the mud.
The silence from decision-makers is deliberate. That is how councils kill tradition: not with malice, however with omission. With selective inaction. With well mannered conferences, backhanded reward and a whole refusal to understand the urgency and worth of what they’re destroying.
Cultural Technique Means Nothing With out Motion
Manchester Metropolis Council has lengthy boasted about its cultural capital. On paper, town has a “world-class” cultural technique. In apply, it’s handing eviction notices to the individuals who constructed its popularity. Retro Bar is likely one of the few remaining venues actively sustaining grassroots music within the metropolis centre. And while you lose your grassroots, you lose your future.
Music Venue Belief has rightly identified the hypocrisy of councils waving the banner for music when it’s worthwhile or politically expedient – however refusing to legislate or advocate for the individuals who make it attainable. The Council’s failure to intervene meaningfully doesn’t simply replicate poorly on Manchester. It sends a message to each small venue within the UK: your heritage means nothing. Your influence means nothing. If we would like the house, you’re gone.
And the gall of all of it? The identical individuals who need Retro gone would be the first to quote The Chemical Brothers as a part of Manchester’s cultural heritage. They’ll fortunately slap their names on tourism campaigns, shout about native legends, and milk nostalgia for each drop it’s value. However in the case of doing the precise work of preserving cultural infrastructure, they vanish.
It’s not that the Council can’t defend areas like Retro. It’s that they gained’t. As a result of to take action would imply standing as much as builders, pushing again on business stress, and acknowledging that ‘regeneration’ is commonly demolition dressed up as progress.
Why It’s By no means Simply About One Venue
When venues like Retro go beneath, it’s straightforward to deal with them as remoted losses. A tragic footnote within the countless churn of city growth. However these closures are cumulative. They erode the connective tissue that binds music communities collectively. They erase coaching grounds, disrupt business pipelines, and tear holes in cultural ecosystems that take many years to rebuild.
Retro Bar is an employer, coaching house, a platform for grassroots artists, a launchpad for nationwide excursions, a house for LGBT membership nights throughout Manchester Delight, a rehearsal and recording house, a bunch to spoken phrase performances, movie screenings and festivals. And, most vitally, it has provided all this not for revenue, however as a result of it mattered.
The whole lot The whole lot described it as a “important coaching floor.” Frank Turner burdened how Retro gave him one in every of his first actual platforms. These aren’t nostalgic endorsements – they’re statements of truth. With out areas like Retro, scenes shrink. Expertise swimming pools dry up. And the subsequent era of artists has nowhere to start out.
The numbers again it up. A latest Music Followers’ Voice survey revealed that almost 94% of Mancunians need culturally vital music venues and nightclubs to be given protected standing. The general public needs these areas to be preserved. However public will counts for nothing if councils and builders proceed to sideline it.
We Know the Options. They’re Simply Being Ignored.
Essentially the most infuriating a part of this complete scenario is its preventable nature. Options exist already. Councils may introduce protected standing for culturally helpful music venues. They may combine cultural infrastructure assessments into each main redevelopment plan. They may guarantee viable relocation help and implement authorized frameworks that give these areas the identical form of stability given to heritage buildings and business tenants.
However they don’t. As a result of cultural areas, particularly ones related to youth, marginalised communities, and subcultures, nonetheless aren’t seen as economically or socially important. That’s the true illness right here. Councils are failing to grasp that tradition is infrastructure. It’s not an add-on. It’s a core part of what makes a metropolis habitable, significant, and human.
Retro Bar’s group has executed the whole lot proper. They’ve stayed in dialogue. They’ve provided options. They’ve rallied the group. Their crowdfunder isn’t only a determined plea for survival — it’s a rallying cry for cultural continuity. They don’t seem to be asking for a handout. They’re asking to maintain doing what they do, in a brand new house, with dignity and help.
Conclusion: If They Can Bulldoze Retro Bar, They Can Bulldoze Something
The demolition of Retro Bar isn’t only a risk to at least one constructing. It’s a warning shot to each grassroots venue throughout the UK. If this will occur in Manchester — a metropolis synonymous with music — it could occur wherever. And except councils begin prioritising cultural infrastructure with actual, enforceable safety, we’ll preserve watching our music scenes be razed to the bottom.
However right here’s the hope: this isn’t over. Retro continues to be preventing. So are its supporters. And if the outrage generated by this closure will get channelled into political stress, we can change the tide. Music communities are used to being underestimated. However they’re additionally used to organising, campaigning, and surviving.
If each one of many 20,000 annual guests donated simply £2.50, Retro Bar would smash their £50,000 crowdfunding objective. Consider your donation as a democratic vote. 1 vote doesn’t matter, but when everybody parted with some digital spare change, the way forward for Retro Bar can be way more sure. Donate to the crowdfunder right here.
Article by Amelia Vandergast