Q&A Q&A
Venue Insight pick the brains of Rob Star, owner of the independent pub company Electric Star.
Founded in 2007, Electric Star Pubs operate primarily in East and North London and currently run The Star of Bethnal Green, The Star of Kings, The Star by Hackney Downs, The Heathcote and Star, The Leyton Star and the awesome street food market Last Days of Shoreditch.
As well as overseeing the growing venue empire, Rob also runs the Eastern Electrics brand and dance music festival at Hatfield House which has been born out of running warehouse parties since the early 2000’s.
and go from running warehouse parties to actually taking on the ‘The Pleasure Unit’, (now The Star of Bethnal Green), lock, stock and barrel, especially as it was failing?...
What made you take the plunge
Running warehouse parties was great, but it always had a finite life span for me. When we started, we were doing it illegally (which had its own obvious issues!). When the licensing laws changed and people realised they could get temporary licenses, everyone started doing warehouse parties! I had decided that I wanted to run a venue myself a long
ELE ROB STAR OF WITH
CTRIC STAR PUBS
time before that, I just needed to save the money. At the time, I was actually trying to buy a venue called The Rhythm Factory in Whitechapel, which was more of a traditional nightclub. Unfortunately that deal fell through, so I bought a pub with a late license. The Pleasure unit wasn’t the nicest venue, but the area it was in (Bethnal Green) was on the up. I stripped it back to the old Skool boozer that it used to be and put on some good late night entertainment. I never even considered that it might not work.
Music is a massive part of your life and within your venues. What’s the perfect storm for a venue musically? Stick a jukebox in and let people choose themselves is not your cup of tea is it?...
I don’t mind a jukebox, but depending on the clientele it doesn’t always lead to the best customer experience! We have great funktion one sound systems in all of our pubs, which means we can have great DJ’s come and play. It also means that even when we don’t have DJs on, the music is always played through a good quality system which is important. For me, the music is a key factor influencing the mood of a place, on an equal par is the lighting. The two need to match for me. If the lights are down low on a Wednesday night, I don’t want to hear banging techno, even though I love that music. The two need to work together and on the weekend, both need to change through the course of the day and night to create the perfect atmosphere.
8 DECEMBER 2017
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