The Arches went into administration today. The press release with all the details is here.
This is terrible on a great many levels.
It means the loss of an incredible venue which kick-started a a huge amount of careers and provided a fantastic starting point for a great many companies (including us, as our first professional piece, Selfish, was an Arches commission). It’s a loss for Glasgow of course, and Scotland, and for UK arts touring. It’s also a blow to a whole model of working. The Arches was an exemplar of the idea that a venue could generate a commercial income and use that to fund brave and experimental work. But now we can see that such a fine balance is impossible without proper support and joined-up thinking from the authorities. It’s pretty shocking, really, that such a vital arts venue could be lost because of the intransigence of the Glasgow Licensing Board.