We thought it would be interesting to find out what it's like to run a London gig venue. We spoke to Stacey who runs the Lexington and Buffalo Bar.
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What is the greatest challenge facing you in running a music venue in London in 2012?
Making a profit whilst still retaining a sense of pride at helping and not exploiting bands
How do you try and distinguish The Lexington & Buffalo Bar apart from other venues
By trying to be better than other venues, mainly in how we treat customers but more importantly how we treat the bands
Are venues in London in competition for bands or vice versa
Venues compete for bands
The Betsey Trotswood & Shacklewell Arms are demonstrating that its possible to run a venue with an interesting and diverse booking policy whilst retaining the character of a pub that one would still be inclined to visit on its own merits' Is that your aim with the offering at the Lexington?
Most definitely
Is it true that the reason venues have three bands on the bill is to increase the visits to the bar? or, is it all about the art?
I prefer a two band bill. We try and talk promoters out of a 4 band bill. A 3 band bill seems to be a common choice with promoters. I think it gives them added security of filling the room. In house shows we try keep it to two. It has nothing to do with bar runs
The Lexington has a reasonable selection of bottled beers for a gig venue, but we have had a request to ask you if you can get more draught real ale behind the bar?
We have 2 lines of real ale as well as 2 lines of American which is similar. We can’t do any draught upstairs in the venue room because of the lengthy of the line we can’t guarantee quality
Any chance of producing a "Live at the Lexington" series of bootleg style recordings of bands which don't have record deals? Online or downloadable etc…
If you tell me how?
Most interesting rider
You’ll have to ask matty. Most of the ‘interesting’ stuff is a joke anyway oh one band asked for no glass to be used within a 100m of the crash barrier. Think it was a generic contract
What is the criteria for successful gig - box office, publicity, drink sales, personal satisfaction?
Sold out, people happy. Job done
Perfect artist yet to play at Lexington?
Nick Cave
The Lexington can be found at 96-98 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9JB
If you have got any questions for Stacey, just mail