Leeds Arena #somethingforeveryone

In a drawer in my desk at the shop, there is a letter dated November 2002. It is a reply from the then leader of Leeds City Council about the lack of an arena in our city. In the letter he says that it has been an ambition of Leeds to have such a venue for 10 years. So from wanting one in 1992 to finally opening one in 2013 it has been quite a long journey. I and many other people have also expressed our frustration over many years in our local paper the Yorkshire Evening Post that Leeds has been the only major city in the UK without an arena. Their reporter Paul Robinson has regularly covered the story as we have slowly inched our way towards its opening. 

So now here we are in 2013 and the opening of Leeds Arena is almost upon us. In my previous blog I gave my views on the huge coup of getting Bruce Springsteen to play his only indoor show in the UK in a special pre-opening gig on Wednesday 24th July. This is probably the biggest gig Leeds has seen for decades and it has opened a bit of a can of worms.

Ourselves and Jumbo have both been ticket agents for all the major venues in Leeds for many years and as soon as the Springsteen date was announced we were both bombarded with enquiries about ticket availability. Neither of the shops will have an allocation, but that wasn't a huge surprise to either of us. We have both been in regular communication with the Leeds Arena boss Tony Watson who has been very clear and honest with us. We will be allocated tickets for some gigs but not for others. The Springsteen gig will sell out instantly with tickets available online and by calling in person at the Town Hall box office. That is the promoters decision and I fully respect that. We would prefer to have an allocation of course but this is a very different situation to the existing venues in Leeds which are largely run independently.

Yesterday a Facebook group was set up to support ourselves and Jumbo and to try and put pressure on Leeds Arena to supply us with tickets. Although it is well meaning and sincere and quite flattering that so many people have joined, it is really not needed. It claims that we have been snubbed on tickets for all but one of the events, but it's simply not true. There have been 11 events announced so far, but some of them are just not relevant to us. We sell tickets for gigs. There is absolutely no need for us to get an allocation of tickets for Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrea Bocelli or Cirque De Soleil. We also don't need Micky Flanagan or Miranda Hart tickets, that's not what we do. We are a music shop and of the acts that have been announced so far we have got Kaiser Chiefs tickets. I didn't see a great need to ask for JLS tickets. So that just leaves Elton John and Bruce Springsteen that we have not received any allocations for. If we were selling tickets for all the events at Leeds Arena it would completely change what we are about as a shop and we definitely don't want that.

Leeds Arena is going to be a huge asset to the city. It will mean that Sir Elton John makes his first visit for 29 years and Bruce Springsteen returns after a 28 year gap. These are indeed exciting times for Leeds. The last thing we want is people being negative about ticket selling arrangements. The new venue has quite often used the tag line something for everyone when it has announced shows and so far it is proving to be the case. Please get behind Leeds Arena, we have waited a long time for it to appear.

You don't say no to The Boss when he asks to play Leeds Arena

It was Sunday afternoon as I was walking home from my Mum and Dad's house when the phone rang. The person calling was Tony Watson from Leeds Arena with an invitation to have breakfast at their office on Tuesday. He wanted to gather a few people from the local music community together for an announcement that was going to be made that morning. We were all asked to arrive at 8:00am and whilst munching bacon butties and drinking coffee, find out who had been added to the ever growing line-up at the city's new venue. I don't think any of us were expecting the two pieces of news that came our way, firstly that Bruce Springsteen would be playing Leeds Arena and secondly that it would be on Wednesday 24th July, about six weeks ahead of the official opening date.

It had already been announced that the first week (and a bit) of events would include Sir Elton John on 4th September and local lads made good Kaiser Chiefs on Friday the 13th. In fact it seemed as though there was still much work to do inside the venue and there would be a couple of low key test events during August prior to opening to the public in September. It now seems we are going to have the test event to beat all test events when The Boss comes to town.

They told us at the breakfast meeting that Springsteen's management had approached the venue to ask if they could slot a Leeds Arena date in amongst the big outdoor shows that he is doing. I can't imagine there is any other answer than yes please to that request! Somebody like Bruce Springsteen playing our new venue is exactly the kind of statement of intent that is needed to make this one of the first choices for touring bands and artists to play. When the recent Fleetwood Mac tour dates came out I was quite dismayed to see the usual cities of London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow on the list. I want to see Leeds break into that elite group. We have waited so long for an arena to built in Leeds and now that we have one we should look to attract the biggest and the best. It was great to see Billboard, the world's most influential music magazine naming Leeds Arena as the number one venue to watch in 2013, having a Springsteen concert attracting people from far and wide in the summer is a great start.

The official proper opening of Leeds Arena is still the beginning of September when a full and varied series of events will start to take place. In some ways the Springsteen gig will take away the impact of those September gigs, but can you imagine the reaction if it was found out later that the Leeds Arena management had said no to The Boss? They couldn't possibly have refused the offer of what is going to be a massively high profile gig. I'm sure there won't be any other major events happening at the venue between 24th July and 4th September when Elton John plays his first Leeds gig since 1984 (I was there) swiftly followed by Kaiser Chiefs. The Springsteen concert is an unexpected and welcome gift for the city's music fans.He was last here when he played Roundhay Park in July 1985 (and yes I was there too!) It's so good to see that we have finally got round to building a much needed arena in the city. Today we have the added bonus of knowing that it's going to be open even sooner than we thought and that there are three great gigs lined up to start us off.

 

Are record shops still important?

Well you wouldn't expect the answer no from me would you?! As someone who owns an independent record shop in Leeds city centre we rely on people buying physical product. And I have to say that I'm pretty positive at the moment. The huge resurgence in vinyl sales during the last few years has had a very significant impact on our ability to continue trading. The shop is now in its 28th year and half of those have been under my ownership.

Prior to buying Crash I worked as a sales rep for CBS/Sony Music calling on record shops throughout the north of England. I did 12 years on the road and loved just about every minute. Future blogs may well contain some of the stories from those days! Before my days working for a record company I had 8 years in record retail. The first four at Virgin Records, followed by a stretch of similar length at HMV.

Virgin has of course disappeared off the map, but the big worry now is that HMV may also vanish from the high street. You may think this would be a cause for celebration for an independent record retailer but it isn't. As other people have already said, HMV closing would negatively impact on the whole record industry and would probably mean fewer releases and labels going out of business. There simply aren't enough independent record shops to pick up those lost sales. (And yes, I do realise that Top Dog probably contributed to lots of independent record shops closing during the last few decades).

The perception that a piece of music has value would soon disappear if we lived in a world where downloads were the only option. Thankfully though lots of people still want to own something tangible by their favourite band or artist. We love to collect stuff, it's in the nation's DNA and there aren't many things better than a record collection (in alphabetical order of course!) so it's vital that we continue to see record shops in cities and towns across the country. There is still plenty of demand out there for CDs and LPs.

Once the HMV situation is sorted out I think the record industry should look at ways to try and ensure that shops continue to trade around the country. Encouraging people to visit bricks and mortar retailers rather than heading straight to Amazon would be good. We pay all our taxes so it's difficult to match them on price without a little help from the record companies.

Something that should definitely be looked at though is the day of the week that albums and singles are released. It has been Monday for many years now, and in the past the only option was to head to the shop on that day to pick up your new release. It used to be a very busy and exciting day for retailers. Now, because there are so many options for people that buzz has disappeared, So why not have Saturday as new release day? It's the busiest day of the week when lots of people are not at work. It could potentially bring the excitement back to new release day. And if that means that the chart is moved to Friday instead of Sunday then why not? There's nothing wrong with shaking things up now and again.

Anyway, that's enough from me for now. Thanks for reading the very first Crash Records blog.