Sheffield venue The Leadmill hosted its final show last week, with the current management team now in the process of vacating the premises after failing to defeat eviction proceedings from their landlord The Electric Group earlier this year.
Current operator Phil Mills previously pledged to strip the venue of all its fittings before handing it back to the landlord and, according to Sheffield newspaper The Star, there’s now a very big skip parked outside the building.
It also quotes General Manager Ian Lawlor as saying, “as we've said from the beginning, we will be taking everything that belongs to us when we go - anything that belongs to us that we don’t need to take with us will be sold or go in the skip”.
Lawlor previously told the newspaper, “when we leave it will be a derelict flour mill, and that’s what they will be left with. They’ll have to start from scratch, it will take them a year to get it up and running”.
The Electric Group - which already runs venues in London, Bristol and Newcastle - plans to re-open the venue under a new name after it has re-fitted the building. The timeline for re-opening is unclear, partly because the landlord won’t know how much work needs to be done until Mills’ team is out and it sees what is left.
In a recent statement to the BBC, The Electric Group said, “What we are intending to do is refurbish the building to create a touring standard space, hosting the coolest club brands and music and live shows, just like we do in Brixton, Newcastle and Bristol”.
Mills and his team fought a long and high profile legal and PR battle to try to stop The Electric Group from taking over the running of the venue. The landlord first gave Mills twelve months to vacate the premises in 2022. The PR battle got a lot of support from the local music community, though it always seemed like Mills’ legal arguments were unlikely to prevail in court.
Despite all the uncertainty surrounding the future of the venue, The Leadmill continued to book in new shows more than twelve months ahead. It is now looking to stage most of those gigs at other venues in Sheffield, with new venues already listed for many of them on The Leadmill’s website.
In a statement on the venue’s social media yesterday, the outgoing management team wrote, “To everyone who danced, sang, laughed, cried and made memories with us over the years - thank you - you gave this place its soul”.
“But this isn’t the end”, they added. “We continue into our next chapter, bringing you the best gigs, club nights, comedy events and more across venues throughout Sheffield - so keep an eye on our listings and come find us out in the city!”