The new Upstairs venue at the Beresford Hotel will open its doors this Friday with a headline gig from Urthboy. The new venue has a 600 person capacity for live bands and is modeled on classic New York City venues.
Justin Hemmes’ Merivale Group bought the Beresford and Excelsior Hotel earlier this year and recently cancelled all live music at the Excelsior. There is speculation that the new Beresford venue will end up being used for club nights and functions, however with Infusion, Snowdroppers and Strange Talk already billed for upcoming dates, it will be interesting to see what happens.
Director of Jam Music Jane English told Drum Media today:
Bands that would have headlined the Excelsior, pulling 50/100 punters, are welcome at Upstairs Beresford. Although they may not be headlining with those numbers. We want to support these bands as much as possible and the venue will provide a broader audience for these bands to be exposed to as supports on a larger bill, so yes, we will be looking for bands that can pull 50-100 people as well as the headline acts.
There has been a lot of talk about the venue’s new sound system, which features D&B and Digidesign products and was overseen by Bruce Johnson, Oasis’s FOH audio operator .
