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VMS announces new ventures in Manchester and Portsmouth
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 3 April 2012
VMS Live, the company set up by former MAMA Live MD Steve Forster, has announced it is taking over the management of two more UK venues, the University Of Manchester Students’ Union’s main space and the Pyramids complex in Southsea, Portsmouth.
Although Forster has pursued various venue management and consulting projects via VMS since its formation in 2007, last year things were stepped up when he was joined by former AMG Operations Director Richard Maides, and the company took over running the former Academy-branded venue in Birmingham, now operating as The Ballroom, and helped Omni Assets reinvent Brixton club The Fridge as Electric Brixton. The new deals will see the independent venue operator gain bases in two further cities.
The company has three year deals with both Southsea Community Leisure with regard to its Pyramids venue, and with the Manchester students’ union, where VMS will manage the organisation’s Manchester Academy complex, which boasts four spaces.
Confirming the new deals, Forster told CMU: “Following on from the opening of the Ballroom Complex in Birmingham and Electric Brixton in 2011, we are absolutely delighted to be involved with the Manchester Academy and Pyramids venue. In Manchester, what we have presented is a ‘bespoke solution’ that fits the needs of the venue and the students’ union both now and in the future. I believe they had other options on the table that involved other organisations effectively taking over their operation; I think we presented a different option whereby we will work with the Union to develop their venues both commercially and operationally”.
He continued: “In Southsea, I think to an extent people have almost forgotten about this venue – it’s fallen off the map so to speak. One of our first challenges will be to change this perception and remind people of what a potentially great venue the Pyramids is. Portsmouth as a town has a very diverse population with a growing number of students and excellent transport infrastructure. What it has missed is a mid-sized venue. We hope the Pyramids will become that venue”.
