Luvely @ The Arches
July 2008 (page 1 of 2)
July 2008 finally saw LUVELY's debut at the ARCHES, Glasgow's famous clubbing haunt and recently voted by the worlds biggest DJ's as being one of the top ten venues in the world. Although Luvely had held a number of successful events in Glasgow's newly refurbished MERCURY LOUNGE back in 2002, it had long been Mr Draeger's wish to return to Glasgow and try the Arches out for size, and in late 2007 a deal was struck with Glasgows biggest promoter that would see Luvely appear there as a single headlining act, for three consecutive months the following summer.
There was however a catch. The only nights available were the first Saturday of the month, the same as our own regular slots in Edinburgh. The crew had to evaluate what our goals would be by running at the venue and decide the best way to proceed. As we had secured three months on the bounce at Glasgow's largest dedicated club venue it was seen as the perfect opportunity to try to fully establish Luvely on the west coast with a view to holding a permanent residency there.
Many have asked why we didn't just swap our Edinburgh dates with other clubs, but this was never going to be feasible without at least a years notice, many clubs have big name guest DJ's booked far in advance- MOBY @ MUSIKA back in August is a perfect example.
Furthermore, the swapping of dates would have meant that at some point, both Luvely and the exchanging club would have had to have run perhaps two weeks in a row at each end of the three month period with a 6 or 7 week gap in between- the confusion was deemed to be far too great for the majority of people. It really just wasn't a realistic option!
So the groundbreaking decision was made to run the club in both locations at once- surely a first for an Edinburgh based club, let alone a high end production such as Luvely! The crew knew this was going to be a massive undertaking- new props would have to be made, more equipment bought, extra DJ's booked from our exclusive London pool- all to ensure that both events ran to our usual exacting standards!
It was clearly the perfect way for the club to gauge the Glasgow scene, and having agreed with our partners in Glasgow that there would be no advertising of the Luvely at the Arches gigs outside of the Glasgow area, it would give us a real chance to test its potential there.
By May everything was set and the promotional material was ready to go. Then disaster struck! The Arches had found themselves in extremely hot water and were facing the loss of their operating licence!! Now we're quite sure that everyone's read all about the events in the press surrounding the controversy with regards to this, and it just wouldn't be fair to drag all the details up yet again, but it did have a hugely negative impact on our advertising campaign. Tens of thousands of flyers & posters had to be ditched and completely changed- in effect censored! Think of a family friendly Luvely flyer… just doesn't quite work, does it! There was none of the usual cheeky innuendo or saucy imagery- we couldn't even print to word 'sexy'!! …enough said.
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