CityLife

Joshua Brooks second to none

Joshua Brooks is the winner in the Venue category of the CityLife Clubbing Awards for a second time

Judging by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the news, it seems our decision to give Joshua Brooks the Best Venue award for the second year running at the CityLife Clubbing Awards was a good one.

Tomorrow night, the venue’s latest new night Bam! Bam! – a return by Clique creators Damien Johnstone and Ian Jones to their original home, bringing with them their none-more-glamorous take on the traditionally shabby world of indie and alternative – is back for its first session of the new year.

Ahead of that – and the many more surprises that await JB fans this year – we caught up with general manager Jon Turner to see what winning the award meant to him and the club.

“It felt great! We all work really hard as a team here, so there was a great sense of satisfaction.

“It’s a credit to the efforts of my immediate team of staff and everybody else that we work with on a daily basis. There are some great venues in Manchester, doing some great things.

“To be recognised once was an amazing feeling... to be recognised a second time was a fantastic surprise. It’s given us all at Joshua Brooks a renewed energy to improve further!”

Making improvement to the club has been a key part of Turner’s game plan since he took over the day-to-day running of the place in 2008.

By his second year in charge, the venue was doing well enough to invest in a bespoke soundsystem – the sort that could facilitate the likes of Octave One’s live set in 2011 (“not far off NASA space control,” says Turner, citing it as one of his personal highlights) and appoint a full-time promotions manager, Gareth Chubb.

Good set-up and promotion do their bit, but what are the other magic ingredients that make the venue such a hit?

“I guess it’s difficult to pinpoint. Although the events at the weekend focus more on underground dance music, we still have a mix earlier in the week with Moustache, Juicy and the newly-acquired weekly Monday event, Nine Lives.

“From Thursday to Saturday, you can see guest DJs more used to playing in front of festival-scale crowds, lifting the roof off the basement.

“There’s a great sense of intimacy between the crowd and DJ, thanks to the space.

“As a punter, you’re not confined to the basement either – we’re lucky to have a bar area that we’ve been able to improve too. There’s also the smoking area and that’s imperative for any venue!

“It’s these ‘social spaces’ on the ground floor that have helped create a sense of community among those revellers who frequent the venue on a weekly, sometimes nightly, basis. It’s a space for them to take a time-out from the often frenetic nature of the dance floor in the basement.

“And it’s that sense of community that gives the venue a welcoming feeling, in my opinion. There’s always a familiar face or two!”

The community includes members of the team who’ve also put their own clubnights on at the venue, such as promotions manager Chubb (whose recently wound-up Micron will be sorely missed) and Sam Swaffield, creator of the routinely amazing S’il Vous Plait and now designer of everything from the club’s logo to promo A-boards.

The return of Johnstone and Jones with their new party underlines the sense of family and shows how well the venue looks after its promoters and DJs; no surprise, since Turner considers their performances integral to the success of a clubnight.

“Certainly, the nights I remember most vividly, are those where there is a distinct relationship/rapport between DJ and crowd. It’s all about
experience, so if you can find a DJ that is capable of orchestrating that, then they become a very important element of a night’s success.

“Of course, the crowd themselves play an important role in determining whether a clubnight has been a success or not. But the crowd often reflect the people behind the event.”

So what does the rest of 2012 hold in store for Joshua Brooks?

“I don’t like to talk of specific plans, just in case they don’t pull off!
Personally, I’m hoping that Bam! Bam! can go on to be as successful and brilliant as Clique was when it started out here!”

Bam! Bam! is tomorrow at Joshua Brooks, Princess Street. 11pm-3am. £2adv/3/4.