I never wanted to have to do this but I have a serious issue with a venue that I have just pulled all my nights from: Dusk Til Dawn in Archway. They have 3 different rooms to use, the upstairs is amazing but Dusk Till Dawn is not set up for Liv. E music at all. The house "backline" consists of beginners combos. They have no decent mics and a shit mixer, so promoters would need to hire all this out in order to put on a high quality event. I gave up with them after having to hire out the basics that any venue declaring themselves as a live music venue should have, including the mixer, which then means paying an independent sound engineer to set up and run the stuff, coz the in-house engineers don't know what the fuck they are doing. On top of that they make the promoters pay for two security guards at £75 each, as well as a hire fee. After convincing them to obtain cans of beer for the metallers on my nights, they filled the fridge last minute with warm cans of Fosters and charged an embarrassing £3.50 per can! . So, as a promoter, this is a venue to avoid! They will mount the costs every event without putting any effort in themselves, the equipment is appalling, the in-house sound engineer had many bands complaining, they do not provide discounts for promoters at the bar, and it's virtually impossible to break even there or build a good following over time in order to eventually break even, as most people have not heard of Dusk Till Dawn, and promoters are not given the tools they need to put Dusk Till Dawn on the map. Although not run by bad people, they need to review their systems for events, improve their set-up and give promoters a better deal and stop cutting corners and expecting eveybody else to foot the bill. Waste of time, such a shame coz in the right hands Dusk Till Dawn would be competeing with the bigger boys, like Purple Turtle or Nambucca. As it is, I won't be surprised if they are sold or shut down within a year.

I go here quite often on a Thursday night, cheap drinks especially for students and great music. I think this place will be great in the summer with the big outdoor patio. Still haven't been to the club upstairs, I'll have to work up the courage to check it out sometime.

I came to Dusk till dawn last friday to attend a gig by a bristol band, Teller. It was my first time there, the stage was very small but still it could have been a good gig... Main problem is that the gig was canceled at the last minute. And in a really non professional way !
The band supposed to open for Teller, London-based Channel Cairo, could not play because each time the music volume was exceeding a normal conversation volume, stage powering was automatically shut down. By the way, their first notes were exciting and I'll check them out later...
So about dusk till dawn, the venue wasn't able to provide decent playing conditions for bands. So Teller came from Bristol for nothing, I canceled another promising night out for nothing, a waste of time and money in my opinion...
If you want to go there, call before to ask if they fixed their gear issues !
Lola

I'm in a classic rock band from Bournemouth that performed at Dusk Till Dawn last month, and it was our first venture out of our local area. On arrival, the aesthetics of the building's exterior seemed promising; the big flaming guitars on the walls and the edgy worn effect certainly gave the impression of a rock orientated club/pub/bar (whatever you want to call it). Although it boasts on their MySpace about having parking spaces outside, these spaces were mostly filled up by cabs as there is a taxi firm directly next door. On entering, it was clear they had continued the retro Rock n' Roll atmosphere inside with countless music and movie posters on the walls. This is all well and good, but this is supposed to be a live music venue (apparently), and from the experiences of that evening, I get the impression that they have concentrated too much on looking the part rather than being a decent host of live music.

The drum kit that had been provided had seen many a better day and the cymbals that went with it were made of biscuit tin lids (luckily, I took my own). All set up on a tiny stage. Once we had taken all our gear inside, were told by the sound tech not to set up because he didn't know how many other bands would turn up. After waiting for about an hour, I got bored and so started to set my equipment up. We turned out to be the only band there, and pretty much, the only people there! Of course, we had been on the road for a couple of hours to be there, so we couldn't bring the usual crowd, but they had made no attempt to advertise the event even though we had sent them posters.

The organisation of the night on the management part was very careless, sloppy and hap-hazard. After we had played our set, we were basically dismissed. No payment, no apology for the lack of people and advertisement. All we got from it was a free pint. Finally all I'll say is because I'm running out of space, Dusk Till Dawn is a good place to have a casual drink, b