SEPTEMBER | FEATURE
Tom Wilson
Immersed
in music
October will see the opening of an
‘immersive’ live music event at a new
London venue. Its creator, Tim Wilson,
talks to Christopher Barrett about
the challenges involved in opening a
new live music venue and show series
against the backdrop of Covid-19-
related restrictions.
Words: Christopher Barrett
Having founded the Vault
Festival and collaborated on
the Punchdrunk and Secret
Cinema event series, Tim Wilson has
considerable experience of creating
immersive shows. His new project, the
One Night Records events brand and
venue on Union Street near London
Bridge, will begin hosting live music
show series Lockdown Town on 2
October.
Running at the venue for three
months, Lockdown Town will feature
live performances from a rotating group
of artists who will play a mix of music
from genres including jazz, blues, rock
& roll and country. The themed event
will see groups of socially-distanced
audience members move from scene to
scene around the venue as they take a
journey back in time through musicrelated
landmarks, culminating with
ragtime and Spanish Flu.
The 30,000-square-foot venue has
a capacity of 360 but the audience will
be separated into groups of 40, with
each group arriving 15 minutes apart.
Tickets are offered for purchase in
groups of two to five, and range in price
from £102 to £252 per group.
“It is not a free roaming experience,
you go through a pre-set journey – that
is the only way to keep it safe,” says
Wilson.
Having found the government’s
guidelines for indoor events, with
social distancing, to be too broad and
vague to be of any use, Wilson says he
has found it more beneficial to look
at what hospitality businesses, such
as Wetherspoon, have done to safely
reopen.
He says, “The government guidelines
have been no help at all. When planning
something like this you have to put
yourself into the shoes of the visitor
and walk step by step through the
experience to ensure it is safe. Now that
the power is in the hands of the councils
to run pilots and instigate lockdowns,
those relationships are key. Southwark
Council has been very supportive.”
While the Covid-19 crisis has
presented obvious challenges to the
production team, Wilson says the
situation has bolstered the team’s
creativity: “The show is not what we
originally pitched last year to investors
but we were determined to press ahead
with a live event and the extraordinary
circumstances led to its evolution.
“The audiences will see that the
music is speaking about issues and
challenges to humanity, challenges
people have been fighting since the last
pandemic and ones we have not yet
overcome.”
“When planning something like this you have to put
yourself into the shoes of the visitor and walk step by
step through the experience to ensure it is safe.”
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