Venue Insight chat to Ryan Keary, the South Coast based founder of Switch Club (Southampton) and Docklands Festival. We find out what it's like to run a successful club and rub shoulders with some of the biggest names on the planet.


Ryan, it’s great to speak with you. How has the start of the Switch Autumn/Winter season been, any early highlights?


A


Early highlights would be that the new screen production has been


really well received. Sort of like a new club and gives it a Superclub vibe; meaning it’s all about the DJ and the production alongside them. The new staff onboard have been fantastic, they’re really on point with the artists. A personal highlight for me would be Patrick Topping performing in Switch, he kept the club full until the very last moments and this was following his earlier performance at the festival (Docklands Festival) – it goes to show just how special he is. It’s been a great start and it's always important to take on board what needs to be tweaked going ahead.


During the Summer period Switch underwent a complete


£200k revamp of the venue’s layout and had additional features implemented, could you let us know more about the major changes?


get a full view of the venue. We’ve also switched the DJ booth a full 180-degrees so the huge wall is projected with LED


A 16 November 2019 www.venue-insight.com


When you come into the venue, you come up via the upstairs so you


with Ryan Keary, Switch Club


and Lasers, a true focal point of the club. The old DJ booth has now been changed into a VIP area which arguably gives off a more special and suitable location for people in that area than previously. We have much bigger booths and the whole club seems to feel much more fluid. Overall, we’ve improved all area’s including the Soundsystem and generally taken the club to the next level.


Going forward and looking beyond the current season, what have you


got in the pipeline for Switch and are there any other projects happening?


A


We’ve got big aspirations, Switch will be hosting stages at festivals, both


UK and beyond - we can’t say too much on this now, but we are keeping an eye out for artists that most fit our sound. We obviously have Dockland's Festival which we are working on now too. I think everything is working hand-in-hand; ultimately we want to stabilise the club with the new changes and kick on from there. We’re our own biggest critics and at the moment we are very happy with how the club is right now.


If you could summarise Switch in a few words,


how would you do this? A


To summarise Switch; it’s a Superclub venue that’s going to give


you a taste of some of the best artists and London clubbing in general. There are not many clubs doing what we are doing and to the level of what we are


We punch above our weight in terms of clubbing size and I definitely feel Carl Cox would be the name we’d like to welcome to the club and I think that could happen in 2020!


switchsoton.co.uk


doing, of course there is several mid- sized clubs out there but I feel we’re very much deserving of being mentioned in the same breathe as those. We ensure all artists we book are made to feel very welcome and I think this reflects in what they have to say about us and the venue following their shows.


So, in summary it’s a completely different experience, a club like Switch brings together a massive pool of people who all have a like-minded feeling towards the music from the artists we book; we see it as like a fraternity for all clientele present on the night.


If there was only one more artist you could book at the


venue, who would it be and why? A


If there’s one more artist we could book, it would be Carl Cox. I think


it will definitely happen one day, just we need to make sure the timing is right. Look – I think it’s important to understand that we can’t charge £30 for people to come to the club and for the likes of Carl Cox and Solomun, this is something that would have to happen. I don’t think people know how much DJ’s cost!


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