Brentwood

Eclipse

venues, july 2008, COMMENTS

When Sam’s Nightclub in Brentwood was earmarked for demolition, to make way for new commercial site redevelopment, its huge customer base staged a protest sit-in on the club’s final night (and created a ‘Save Our Sam’s’ Facebook site). This was a sure indication that owners Robert Bartella, John Brodie and Kevin Springham had a winning formula on their hands - but they were already one step ahead. Across the forecourt they had purchased the lease on a Punch Taverns pub called The Castle, and by the end of last year had converted it into Eclipse Nightclub (which would serve as a handy feeder bar for Sam’s during its dying days).


But this was just the beginning and this month Eclipse Brentwood Ltd completed a major second phase extension costing them around £1.4m. Extending onto the adjacent brownfield yard, they got the timeline just about perfect, because Sam’s closed its doors for good on 31 May and the new twin-scene Eclipse opened for business a week later.


With a capacity of around 650, it is only marginally short of its predecessor, and certainly the owners have spared nothing in creating a compelling environment for their loyal customers (including a beautifully-crafted Cocktail Lounge, Smoking Terrace, high energy dancefloor with lasers and of course the feeder bar).


The designer’s imprint suggested a highly creative mind, and its homage to retro (mirrors, lacquered reflective surface, mirrorballs and laser) also hinted that he had probably been around the block. Enter Glover & Company Design. I last saw John Glover in the early ‘90s when he was part of the Simpsons of Cornhill team that launched Dell’Ugo in Soho. Fourteen years on and we are in deepest Essex, but the challenges are no fewer.


Eclipse not only faces onto a block of apartments, but will shortly have a new-build residential home (and commercial offices) as its neighbour. Licensing expert Susanna Popplestone must have charmed the pants off Brentwood Borough Council, I suggested? Kevin Springham smiles at the irony - despite all the initial objections to Sam’s when it opened in 1998, the town now sees the operators as a real asset. “In fact Brentwood Borough Council have bent over backwards to keep a late night facility,” he says. “Everyone wanted to make it happen.” Certainly they had to bring in SRL to handle the acoustic insulation (there needs to be heavy attenuation outside) but the owners got the licence they needed.

Having designed the original concept for Sam’s, John Glover can look back at a number of triumphs here, not least of which is the seamless way he has blended the old Castle Bar into the new build via electronic glass partition screens, which automatically lift at around 9.30pm when the club is open for business. The nightclub’s separate entrance is canopied by a giant umbrella (with integral heating) and similarly-styled umbrellas have also turned the smoking terrace into one of the most desirable areas of the club.


Glover has also maximised the net operating space, converting the former manager’s flat into the Cocktail Lounge and handling all the architectural work, interior design, cost control and project management.


The lavish Cocktail Lounge is adorned with diagonal-mirrored barfronts, blue/black/purple carpet and sumptuous soft furnishing supplied by Richard Chinn. There are plenty of LCD media displays, little teardrop chandeliers mixing with big lampshades, sheer curtains, a blue LED strip recessed behind the mirror to give a warm glow and a highly-polished black Technistone dancefloor, which glitters like fibre optic.

Cosmic has re-used some of the existing RCF equipment from Sam’s and added in some new RCF Vision mid-tops flown from the ceiling, with Event series subs and Monitor 88s in the Bar areas. Void have provided the DJ reference sound. The control booth is like a Pioneer showroom. The new SVM-1000 AV mixing desk, with USB port and memory card slot, handles DVJ-1000 and CDJ-1000 sources, while a separate portable system has been made available for upstairs. Martin Dockree, UK sales manager for Pioneer Pro DJ commented: “Eclipse is the first independent nightclub in the UK to install the SVM-1000/DVJ-1000 DJ video booth solution to make the most out of their financial investment in display screens. The DVJs allow the DJ to play the venue’s commercial dance/R&B music policy on DVD, feeding the audio and video stream through the SVM-1000 AV mixer to the sound system and the club’s main video display respectively at the same time. Added to this, the SVM-1000 allows the DJ to type in request messages and drinks promotions using the text effects generator, then feed those photos on to the main video display complete with audio and video effects.”

The light jock has the enviable task of manipulating John Glover’s fabulous 576-crystal rod ceiling sculpture, which hangs in random lengths over the dancefloor. “Each has an LED square at the top so you can change colour on the Martin Light Jockey,” explains the designer. “It’s back to the lighting rig idea but we have tried to move it on with a modern take.” And so he has.

The pedigree that has gone into the fabrication of this venue is matched by that of the operators. Kevin Springham, the de facto GM, piloted some of the UK’s classic venues - after being resident DJ at Duke’s in Chelmsford, co-owner Robert Bartella suggested a career in management, and he later went on to manage Zen in Dartford for owner Steve Webb. He plans a four nights a week operation, including Ceroc dancing classes on a Tuesday.

While John Glover is amazed how much trading space has been clawed back from a Punch Taverns pub, Kevin Springham reflects how the operation has moved on since all those protests and the opportunities that lie ahead, such as franchising out the cocktail bar as a restaurant. As for me, the most staggering disclosure I only noticed as I was leaving - when Kevin Springham handed me his business card. The telephone number is: 01277 200000. Bit unusual I thought? “It was originally a BT test number,” smiled Kevin. “We paid them £75 for that.”

Words: Jerry Gilbert

Images: John James

From: July 2008 Issue

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