EDG&R Goth, Industrial, Darkwave Event 28th Nov


LARGEST IN SCOTTISH HISTORY - NO BETTER REASON FOR A QUIET SATURDAY NIGHT IN.

Alternative music festival, Edinburgh, Scotland - all day on Sunday the 28th November, 1999. Holyrood Union, Holyrood Road, Edinburgh. £5.00. Acts:- Attrition, Sneaky Bat Machine, Chaos Engine, Narcissus Pool - guest DJ's.

The Edinburgh Goth and Rock Society, EdG&R, a group based at Edinburgh University, are proud to announce that they are holding a one day Alternative music festival on Sunday the 28th November, 1999.

This event, the largest of its kind ever to be held in Scotland, will feature the first-ever appearance north of the border by the pioneering electro-industrial band, ATTRITION. This band have been producing their own unique brand of dark electronic music since the early eighties, but until now have never played in Scotland, despite touring all over the globe.

Appearing with ATTRITION will be the infamous Techno-Goth Terrorists SNEAKY BAT MACHINE, bringing their own twisted brand of electronic pop to the capital for the first time, before they embark on their much-anticipated US tour, and the current darlings of the Metal Press, THE CHAOS ENGINE, who play driving Industrial metal, are making a welcome return to Scotland, although this will be the first time they have played to an Edinburgh crowd.

The first Scottish appearance by Darkwave rockers THE NARCISSUS POOL finishes off the line-up, although there may be a surprise act lurking. This fantastic package of bands, as well as special guest DJs from all across the country, will be taking over Holyrood Student Union, Holyrood road, Edinburgh, for the day, between 3pm - 1 am.

The events on Sunday the 28th aren't the only happening for fans of dark music that weekend - We've arranged late licences with local pubs (The Holyrood Tavern - 3am), and we are working closely with other promoters. Fans are expected to travel from as far as London and the south coast to take part in this unique event.

Murray Gibbons

More info. (interviews, press-passes etc.) contact Murray at:
Work murray@metromms.co.uk Tel. 0131 652 8984
Home wibble@morpheus.ednet.co.uk Tel. 0131 664 5658

EDGAR c/o Rory Hunter: roryh@dcs.ed.ac.uk
URL: http://www.ed.ac.uk/~edgar/cerberus

Released Oct 1999 by EDG&R

Nightnews moves to new frontiers in New Media Promotions

A Solid Record of Communications achievement with Edinburgh's alternative club scene

Mission Club Turnover increased by 300% plus in 6 months 17 April 1999 - 31 October 1999 (Halloween.)

Nightnews was exclusively responsible for publicising The Mission, Scotland's largest and most innovative alternative night-club, from April 17th 1999 to Halloween Dec 31st 1999. During this period, club attendance following relocation and relaunch was built up from 350 / 400 clubbers at £4 / £3.00 to 700 plus at £5 / 4.00.

Turnover at the gate was increased from approximately £1050.00 to £3500.00 per club night and with two or three clubs per month this has meant an average monthly door total of £7000.00 to £10,500.00 per month from Mission clubbers alone.

Colin Davie, Neil Campbell and David Smith, the club joint owners, cut is 50% of this, which is an estimated £3500.00 - £5,250.00 every month.

The Studio 24 proprietors obtain the same average 50%, the Studios also experience exponential growth on the 'bar take' from Scotland's largest alternative drinking club!

Door takings for this club alone, so far indicate an annual estimated total projected forecast of £84,000.00 to £126,000.00 p.a.

Costs, that is publicity, DJ's and door staff's pay, did not rise and remain fixed. Alternative society in Edinburgh and the rest of the world IS big business.

In addition Nightnews's publicity has nurtured three other clubs with differing degrees of overall success.

DUST the regular Thursday night, small scale, alternative club had its attendance doubled and tripled at Studio 24. DUST which has never enjoyed a following greater than 30-40 at its previous premises at the old Rockin Horse in Victoria street has had its average attendance built up in excess of 70 plus and sometimes 120 plus alternative clubbers.

Ignition also known as the Mission Friday Rock Night was nurtured steadily throughout the Summer holidays with a typical attendance of 80 plus. It now has an attendance in excess of 120 - 150 clubbers. This is an achievement for a 4 weekly rock club. It should not be confused with a new club by a similar name at Fountainpark, Edinburgh. Nightnews was solely responsible for launching and marketing this Studio 24 club night.


Trans-Mission is now CANCELLED

Trans-Mission was another Nightnews invention. A BDSM, mixed (gay and lesbian friendly) fetish night. Trans-Mission became Scotland's largest fetish club overnight with over 120 fetish clubbers on its opening night. This stabilised to around 70 / 80 plus on subsequent nights, making it a playground for Scotland's sexiest and most beautiful people, sporting unusual fetish costumes, to swing the night away.

Unfortunately though an achievement in itself this is not sufficient for a Saturday night club to warrant further development and investment at Studio 24 and Trans-Mission is now CANCELLED. (It will probably be replaced by a Salsa night and Trans-Mission may look for a more up-market and safer, smaller home elsewhere.)

With these achievements, comes the the permanent economic viability of Studio 24 which has hitherto relied on clubs such as Apex, Pillbox, Subtle Logic, Venus, Frog and Alan Joys gay nights, Mingin and Filth - none of whose clubbers are known as big spenders on alcohol products. Studio 24 has been under offer as a 'going concern' and recently attracted an offer of £1.m


Updates on TM 27 Nov & Dec '99

In a new development, the proprietor of Studio 24 together with David Smith, Neil Campbell and Colin Davie, decided to try to keep the night running without the participation of the originating agency as previously agreed. This resulted in attendance plummeting and a drop in the quality of the product offering.

The scene in Edinburgh has in any event moved on to i.e., 'SIN' at Club Eden, as of late December 1999, with new music policies such as - 'London progressive house and dance party.'

(Please note, Nightnews accepts no responsibility for the safety or enjoyment of patrons at any attempted successor event held by or, at Studio 24 and or by other promoters therein as of 31st October 1999 - 'caveat emptor.' )



How Nightnews does it

Nightnews relies on proven systematic marketing techniques at both local level and with national press groups both of which are tied in with the New Media opportunities of the world wide web. These include e-mail subscriber lists for networking and internet web sites.

Nightnews combines these to develop low cost and powerfully effective tailored solutions to integrated communications media planning and execution for clients. (For those interested, we estimate the internet aspect of this in the UK is only worth 10% of the effect for 40% of the effort.)

Nightnews can regularly provide a hard copy listing service to 120 targeted local and national media opportunities, including national press and nation-wide magazine listings services. We send 120 via nightnews-media and back these up with 17 faxes to our main target media for Edinburgh alone.

Nightnews provides a powerful press information function targeting a further 73+ tailored media opportunities when necessary, consisting of daily, weekly and monthly, hard copy newspapers and magazines. In addition publishing groups, radio and TV stations, programs and reporters as well as specialist and lifestyle periodicals. (Week 1 of Press information operations for one client generated approx. £8k of prime newspaper space in the Edinburgh Evening News alone.)

The tailored Nightnews local media plan has a minimum cumulative circulation of, 4,058,798m

Nightnews has further developed web based subscriber mailing lists, with a newsletter called Nightnews

Nightnews has developed an award winning web-site to act as an on-line media pack and point of further information, both to busy media professionals and to leisure and entertainment consumers. This web site is optimised for high quality local hits. (Previous visible counters on the front page have demonstrated its success with over 2000 hits in 6 months.)

The web site is being further developed as the NightNews Alternative Portal and as social archive of ephemera.

Nightnews can take responsibiliy for advertising design, digital imaging, leaflet and flyer production as well as targeted leaflet distribution. (EAE is allocated poster distribution.)

Print can be obtained at specially discounted rates for Nightnews, sponsors can be found and additional sums raised for clubs from sponsorship sources, though never used to date.

Up to 1500 A6 flyers are recommended for distribution per club every month through 30-60 plus, carefully selected retail outlets and up to 100 - 300 A3 posters via EAE in locations of our choice.

Nightnews is always interested in hearing from other potential clients and sponsors to assist its highly cost effective promotion and development activities in new media for events and venues at the local level.

Contact Nightnews for further Information on how we can Nightnews media plans and implement them for you.

Released 12 Nov 1999 by Nightnews
Updated 22 01 2001

Mission Latest - 'Free Live Acts take Alternative Edinburgh Society by storm!' + pix 27 July 1999

Announcement - No festival price increases!

5am licence throughout August!

Free Goth and Rock Bands in the Autumn!

Free Live Acts

Continuing an aggressive and innovative development policy that is leaving other Edinburgh night club proprietors and musical promoters in a state of stunned disbelief - the Mission introduced 'free live acts' by leading alternative performance artists on June 12th.

These acts are to be run on a periodic basis - 'Lucifire' on June 12th was followed on July 24th by 'Lisette the Illusionist.'

Both acts played to a packed main hall and the stunningly original visuals, special effects, schlock - horror performances and audience reaction has confirmed our belief that this is the best way to repay our patrons for their continued loyalty and support.

Developing an atmosphere of millenial, devil may care fun and games is a fitting approach to the impending end of the century. We think the party started several months ago and we are going to party on well into the next hundred years.

It is intended that this development policy will be continued in August during the Edinburgh International Festivals and the Fringe Festivals.

(See some more pix of Lucifire at the Alpha Gallery)

No festival price increases!

The Mission will recapture the original spirit behind the festival, when acts were priced reasonably and a good night out could be had on a budget.

The City has increasingly been taken over by outside theatrical companies, many of dubious quality, charging unrealistic prices and playing almost exclusively to tourists.

The success of our clubs is founded entirely on the support of our patrons and we are not going to repay them by trying to rip them off or exclude them every August. The standard ploy of other venues with their bogus and lame festival offerings.

The Mission will partner with select major alternative performance artistes that will be in the City. This should happen on both 7th August and the 21st - details will be available closer to the time.

In keeping with this ethos, all of the Mission Promotion Team nightclubs will be operating as usual throughout the festival at Studio 24. Their will be no increase in the entry price and drinks & music promotions will continue as usual throughout the festival period.

5am licence

In addition all of our Studio 24 clubs will enjoy a 5am late licence in August!

As for the festival, its welcome and it will be coming to the Mission in August. The Mission and associated clubs will probably be the best value as a non festival venue and the biggest and best nights out alternative society in the City can offer.

Free Goth and Rock Bands to follow soon!

Once the festival is behind us, the Mission will introduce a policy of periodic free bands on our two main floors starting in the Autumn.

Networking has been taking place in both the goth and rock music promotion businesses and has been well received. So be prepared for some very special band appearances starting in September.

In the meantime, we are still the only club in Edinburgh to operate on three floors and play three different musical genres with our specialist DJ's.

The Mission Control Floor has just been re-decorated as it doubles as a Dungeon. It will be further improved with new lighting, a DJ booth and improved flooring. In addition the music policy has been developed by dj's Aaron and Duncan providing patrons with a mix of 60's to the 90's and generous helpings of indie, dance, 80's, new romantic, goth, industrial, punk, and rock!

Mission membership cards are now available and will give you £1.00 off entry at the Mission and Trans-Mission. Show your cards at the Black Bull @ 43 Leith St (junction with Calton Road) to be eligible for drinks promos at our pre-club pub.

The Mission is far from dead and according to our foreign guests, rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the biggest and best, alternative nights out in the world...

- so be there and have fun!

(Released 27 July 1999) by Nightnews

The Mission Lives... or

How We Launched the New Mission

Opening and Successive Night Report

Having correctly surmised that the Scottish and Newcastle owned night-club 'The Rocking Horse' was to be sold at the end of March 1999, the '11th hour collective' was born.

The '11th hour collective' is an ensemble of enthusiastic promoters, staff members, DJ's, new media people and basically anyone who was not prepared to be left out in the cold by the sale of the old venue.

We make up about two thirds of the promotion and management team of the New Mission. The name seemed natural as we had literally 2 weeks to find a venue, organise and promote a club night for potentially 500 plus alternative clubbers! That's how we took matters into our own hands, to keep the scene alive and we moved the whole thing halfway across town to Studio 24 in Calton Road.

At 11pm on Saturday the 17th of April, three weeks after the closure of our old venue, we were all holding our breath. A quite incredible amount of work, money, and hope had gone into the new venture from teams of volunteers. These worked day and night, painting, decorating a new dance floor, designing artwork, handling media and flyering. The sound system was still being wired in and completed with only 10 minutes to go.

At 10:30pm, 30 minutes before doors opened, the suspense had eased a little as there was a queue outside. The queue began to grow and soon after we opened at 11pm, the door staff had to closely supervise entry, though this was largely because we forgot to organise a proper float! So apologies to those who didn't have the right change and had to wait a little longer to get in.

As the night wore on over 500 people graced us with their presence for our first night, proving quite categorically that the alternative scene in Edinburgh is alive and well! What's more, two thirds of our new patrons were not members of the old club indicating a strong demand for what we were doing.

The night itself ran perfectly and almost all of those who attended and spoke to us said they preferred the new club due to its superior light and sound system, good looks, general ambience and service.

The 'New Mission' has survived and will ensure those that prefer a more sophisticated alternative environment with specialised ambience and music have a club to go to as we move into new millennium.

The club featured three separate clubs in one representing as wide a spectrum of alternative music as we believe is possible.

Main hall - BURN

The floor seemed the focal point for the Mission and the DJ's led by Craig had the massive crowd sweating from start to finish. Those without the energy chilled out by the bar and some even played table football over a Newcastle Brown (only one pound fifty.)

"The scene from the DJ booth was quite something, three hundred arms piercing the mist from the smoke machine, it was like Glastonbury or something," said DJ Tony.

Upstairs Hall - EARTH - INFERNO

Our gothic - alternative floor is home for the more reserved and sophisticated clubbers. They seemed to slip into the new venue effortlessly. Some complimenting the superior light and sound, friendlier atmosphere and catching up on the gossip.

Many said the new club had a positive vibe and reminded them of the 'Slimelight' in London. Several enjoyed posing for the Evening News photographer who covered the first night. Overall the feedback was excellent and the outfits and make-up even more stunning than usual.

Back Rooms - MISSION - CONTROL

The almost anything goes policy certainly went, as eighties records clashed with 70's disco and 90's trip-hop with indie rock. The dance floor bounced and clubbers tired out on metal and Goth came up to chill out in the newly decorated surroundings.

Overall, the only problem inside the new venue and with this particular floor was that with all the effort spent on decorating, we forgot to sign post it adequately, still you live and learn and next time it got big signs!

The new venue is Studio 24, formerly the Calton Studios, on Calton Road, which has an excellent history of quality bands, gigs, and events featuring the alternative scene and its music.

We would like to thank the Venue itself, everyone who attended on the first and on successive nights and all those who help us paint, decorate, promote develop and run the club.

Lastly we would like to thank the media, especially the 'Evening News' who in showing such interest in our story (and giving us a double page centre spread on Friday April 30th,) helped us realise our success on successive dates.

(We know that we provide a night-club for Edinburgh's more sophisticated and demanding clubbers. The large brewery venues are killing the scene by using their trendy clubs as packaging to bolster draught beer and mixer sales, targeting circuit drinkers at the end of a night of alcoholic excess. We condemn their social irresponsibility in facilitating alcohol abuse amongst teenagers and young adults. We put customers enjoyment, well being, service and musical tastes first! - Nightnews)

We are showing that by direct action, a lot of hard, smart work and with the support of the alternative populous and the media, we can help keep Edinburgh's international and fun, cosmopolitan reputation alive.

After all, without the alternative there is only the norm. - Neil

Please note everyone, the entry fee will go up to £4/5.00 from 4th June in order to help finance further development. This is still one or two pounds less than any other major night club in Edinburgh for a Saturday night. - 11th hour collective and Colin Davies.

(Released 12 May 1999)

DUST to host Anakin 2nd September 26 July 1999

Attendance at DUST has continued to grow steadily since the move to Studio 24 and is now averaging around the 100 mark. This is really great for the DJ's who can begin to pay themselves. After all, they have put two years work into this 'early start to the weekend' regular alternative party night!

DUST continues into the Summer vacation despite the absence of some of our student regulars. The city is now starting to fill up with the annual influx of international festival goers. Many of these will appreciate our budget £2.00 entrance to the best alternative mid week club the City has to offer.

Some late breaking news from the DUST team - the club will be putting on 'Anakin' on 2nd September. This is definitely an alternative band to watch in the coming months. Their special brand of alternative sound will fit in easily with our industrial, punk, goth, metal & rock genres played at DUST.

There will be no extra door charge for Anakin and the band is playing to support the scene and promote themselves in the area. More details on Anakin will follow closer to the date from Manny their manager.

In the meantime DUST welcomes alternative party goers from the USA, Europe, Australia and the rest of the world.

- thanks for coming and please come again!

DUST REPORT 12 May 1999

Dust moved to regular weekly Thursday nights from 1st April

Dave and his DJ's moved the alternative club 'DUST' to a regular usual late Thursday night slot at Studio 24.

Playing the expected Goth, Industrial, Metal, Punk and Rock to a loyal midweek student following - Dust is in its second great year.

Entry is a student friendly, two pounds again from 3rd June. Drink promotions and a happy hour continue.

DUSTS first night at Studio 24 was an immense success and the club played a crowded room with many new and interesting faces as well as DUST regulars.

Since then the club has been attracting a 50 / 60 plus weekly following and continues to grow steadily.

DJ Duncan is back at DUST from mid May as Paul Wilson has had to take a break from late nights for a while. Dave, Ian and Julia continue on the line - up.

- be there!