On the loss of another loved Liverpool music venue
By Sam Horsfield
On a groggy Sunday morning on the 2nd of November, the sun just about beginning to creep up, Zanzibar closed its doors for the final time. Those loyalists who stayed until the club’s daunting 6am close trickled out into the daylight, sweaty and stumbling, bleary eyed and defeated, bidding a drunken adieu to their Saturday night residence. It had been a night to (albeit with a struggle) remember, energised with town’s ‘Halloweekend’ buzz, partnered with the night coined as the ‘Last Ever Zanzibar’. The dancefloor was rammed with bodies, flying arms and crying out lungs, blurry lights, and a sticky ground. Upstairs, the smokers rolled their final cigarettes to be smoked in one of the most comfortable nightclub smoking areas to be found, with a roof and heaters, and sofas to sit back in. It was a night of ‘lasts’ and a morning of ‘one more times’, and a sad night for many.
But it isn’t just the loss of a favourite Indie club night that brushed the evening with a dark shade of sorrow. What stung even more, was the loss of yet another acclaimed grassroots music venue, another hit against developing musicians in this infamous game of battleships that seems to be targeting venues around cities across the country.
Zanzibar was opened in 1990 by the locally esteemed Tony Butler, an icon of Liverpool’s modern music scene. He gave bands such as the Coral, the Zutons, and Red Rum Club a stage upon which they could launch their career, gradually over the years creating a sound system revered by many of the bands that played there. In 2018, Butler passed away, leaving a gaping hole in his place. This was the beginning of the end for the nightclub and venue: a change of management, a new sound system, a perceived sense of “cliquey” behaviour – just some of the criticisms that followed from the change.
There have been more locally charged arguments on why Zanzibar’s time is up, attacks against the modern Liverpool music scene, apparently smeared by a nostalgic hubris, new bands unable to innovate, due to culturally infertile soil; a city complacent with its musical history. But proprietors of such arguments are looking in the wrong places. There are many scenes with bands and artists climbing bills and gaining recognition. The student band scene is energetic, and annually providing fresh meat. It’s a scene that interweaves with the wider cultural environment, the city eager to take passionate kids under its wing. But the closure of venues is a concern for this scene. It isn’t just happening in Liverpool. This is a scourge targeting the entire country.
Urban underground music scenes flourish in dingy nightclub basements, where one can hardly see for the lights. Its where many a band have started, and it remains an industry in itself, with promoters and venue owners carving a living and a lifestyle out of the grassroots scene. This is becoming increasingly harder, however, as grassroots venues around the country seem to be failing. Statistics tell us that two grassroots venues close every month; in 2024, between 120 and 150 closures were recorded in the UK, and although 2025 figures are yet to be released, the numbers can be expected to be similar. In Liverpool alone, 2025 saw the Caledonia close, and the Quarry forced to relocate, a fortunate outcome in such a temperate climate. And now, Zanzibar.
Further down the M62, a similar city of historical prestige suffered a similar blow this year. In Sheffield, the iconic Leadmill closed down after a skirmish of a legal battle. The final gig at the venue, performed by Sheffield frequenter Miles Kane, saw similar faces of drunken disdain at the closure of the lionized venue upon leaving; it was almost a premonition of those that would stagger out of Zanzibar. Likened by Richard Hawley to the Hacienda of Manchester, and the Cavern Club of Liverpool, the loss of the Leadmill, such a culturally significant site, is an ominous omen that even the most legendary of venues, dripping with the musical prestige and glory of yore, aren’t safe from the iron fist of economic struggle.
It’s a dangerous epidemic that impacts the entire country, but the North West, London, and Yorkshire seem to suffer the most, particularly since COVID. 2023 saw the rock venue Jimmy’s, located in a prime spot at the top of Bold Street, shut down, due to economic struggles since the pandemic. The virus left a financial strain on everybody, but small business were affected the most, a shame in the music industry, as it is these small venues that often carry the most culture and history. With more than a third of venues currently making a loss, something needs to be done to protect the scene where so many young artists are allowed to take a stab at what they love. Each venue that closes is more than a mere battle lost in the war against the local music industry. It’s yet another dissuasion for a group of kids with guitars to chase their passion, in a world where dissuasion and deterrence are not difficult to come by.
So what is being done?
Nationally set business rates following the pandemic were lowered considerably for the music sector, however this financial year (2025/26) has seen a drastic increase yet again. However, in August it was announced that £1.57 billion, in the form of a ‘cultural recovery package’ would be used to save 150 venues from insolvency, nationwide. Similarly, a ‘Music Growth Package’ also pledges up to £30 million over three years to support emerging artists. Also mentioned in the package was a £1 levy on stadium and arena tickets, to create a funding pot for grassroots venues. It’s all good talk: a selection of exciting words. But, as Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd said to ‘Now Then Sheffield’ magazine earlier this year, “We need action, not words”. In a country that often struggles to fund the arts in both education and industry, only time will tell how trusting of these packages we should be.
Back in Liverpool, hundreds of young night-owls, the luminaries of the alternative counterculture that breeds in underground music scenes and grassroots venues, are at a loss for what to do when Saturday night rolls around now. The club night itself has moved to EBGBs, another nightclub and venue with a similar attractive dinginess and grit to Zanzibar. But what lies ahead for the building itself, which stands so eerily still and quiet every night, a silent reminder of the damage being done?
Rumours circulate the city, with some important figures in the music scene claiming its future lies in yet another green glow of an Irish Bar. Others claim it will be taken up by the 1936 Pub Company, owners of the Red Lion, the Pilgrim, the Monro, and many other classic pubs in Liverpool, renowned for their ‘real pub’ aesthetics. One can’t help but sense a slight cloud of scorn gathering in the sky at this; beautiful pubs though they are, the diversity of the cultural scene of Liverpool is one of its assets, and a monopoly on establishments may restrict this.
Alas, these are all mere rumours. For now, all we can do is wait and see.
The sun is rising. The nightclub is closed. We are all stumbling home, tired and hazy. Tomorrow is an obscurity. What the future holds is a question whose answer we must wait for. Promises and pledges are hopeful, but an empty word is a sharper blade than a harsh truth. Today, we can only pray that such promises are implemented, for if they aren’t, the future of grassroots music scenes is in for a dark battle. It is but one front of a culture war which rages against small artists and their abilities to refine their art, a bloody brawl for the security of the stars of tomorrow.
By Sam Horsfield
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