This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Legal Live Business
London’s Oval Space relaunches as Oval Studios following licensing issues
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 9 January 2023
East London clubbing venue Oval Space has relaunched as Oval Studios and is now positioned as primarily a location for TV and film productions, exhibitions and “immersive experiences”. It follows the decision last year of Tower Hamlets Council to revoke the licence that covered the venue’s former operations.
That licence was revoked following a shooting at the venue last August, which resulted in a second review of the Oval Space business by the Tower Hamlets licensing committee, an earlier review having followed a stabbing at the club in February 2020.
During last year’s review, a representative of London’s Metropolitan Police claimed that “violence appears to have escalated” at the venue and that “the premises are being poorly run”. The police officer also expressed concerns that “control of the venue had effectively been taken over by gangs”.
The venue’s owners rejected many of those allegations. They conceded that there had been issues with a security firm which had previously been used, but noted that that firm had been replaced.
Meanwhile, various other improvements had been made to security at the venue following the 2020 review – which went into effect once the space re-opened after the COVID-caused shutdown and which had been acknowledged by police earlier in 2022.
Nevertheless, the venue’s licence was revoked in October. At the time Oval Space’s owners said in a statement: “We are incredibly disappointed by this week’s decision by Tower Hamlets”. Last August’s shooting, they added, “is not a reflection of the many safe and inclusive events the venue hosts for Londoners each month and has done over many years. We completely dispute any claims that the venue is gang affiliated”.
In its new guise as a space for filming, exhibitions and other events, Oval Studios is described in its new official blurb as “a multi-purpose, blank canvas venue with 400 square metres of flexible indoor and outdoor space – the perfect place to build, explore and share”.
