The Cowley Club on London Road, Brighton, has launched a Crowdfunding campaign to help the music and arts space stay afloat in lockdown.

The Cowley Club, the beating heart of the Brighton independent music and arts scene, needed to raise £5,000 to ensure its continued survival, and has hit the £3,000 in the first 24 hours. There is still much to do, however.

The only fully-vegan, radical, cooperative social space in Brighton, Cowley is raising funds for critical repair and refurbishment works, having seen its income streams annihilated by lockdown.

CROWDFUNDING LINK IS RIGHT HERE

Regularly hosting affordable gigs, providing the city with food, coffee, books and shelter, and generally being the only true anti-capitalist punk co-op left in the city, the club is at the heart of all that is good about Brighton. It’s future however, is under threat.

Announcing the launch of its Crowdfunder, organisers said:
“The Cowley Club has been closed to the public since March, with some very limited opening possible at the end of 2020. Now in another lockdown, the bills are mounting up (insurance, mortgage, stock waste, maintenance, interest, and loan repayments) and we’re not able to sell the pints to pay them.

“We secured a grant in early 2020, which just got us through the year. If we can reopen soon, the Cowley Club might just be able to cover the bills and to replace out-of-date stock, but we do need: 1. A glasswasher (~£600) to safely sterilise glasses so as soon as the law lets us, we’ll be able to open our doors to you again. 2. A new security shutters (~£3000) to replace our old, heavy wooden boards so our club is more secure and it’s more accessible for anyone to open/close the club.

Become part of the Cowley Club’s survival story and throw a few quid at it. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.”

In the 24 hours since the campaign was launched, more than £3,000 has been raised, much to the delight of anyone and everyone that knows how important Cowley is.

“We’ve made it this far thanks to our tireless volunteers and the support of our community, but we need your help to make it through the next few months and keep The Cowley Club going until we can open up again! We’re crowdfunding just short of £5,000 to ensure we’re still here once we make it through lockdown and the pandemic, so we can get back to doing what we’ve been doing since 2003, and keep on getting better,” commented organisers.

There is still some way to go, so if you can help out, in whatever way, please do. With Brighton rapidly being turned into a soulless plain-brick-and-glass property development nightmare, we simply cannot afford to lose any more venues, especially one as significant, and generally fucking class as Cowley Club.