The Venue Nightclub - Isle of Man

As the manager of The Venue nightclub, on Central Promenade, Douglas in the Isle of Man, from it's opening in June 2000 until it closed it's doors for the final time on 17th September 2005, I have many memories of my time there and wish to share some of my experiences with you. I have a lot of photographs of different events, with pics of the customers and of the acts who entertained them. I want to post a lot of these pictures on this site and hope they will bring back memories for a lot of you.
For the people who never visited The Venue I will tell you a little about it. The Venue was licensed for 1,100 people and had a floor space of about 9,000 square feet with two seperate rooms.
The main room had a large stage where we sometimes held live acts, including bands, stand up comedy shows corporate events and even children's shows. There was also a large dance floor for the enjoyment of our customers and a long bar that was capable of serving large numbers in quick time. The bar servery was wide, which allowed as many as 15 to 20 bar staff to pass each other without hindrence, so giving a fast and efficient service. The main room could be made smaller by electrically operated shutters that came down, when required. On a normal nightclub night, such as a Saturday, these shutters were left down from opening time, at 9pm. At midnight they were raised to reveal the stage and dance floor and this was usually done to an appropriate tune, with lasers and fog making machines, making it quite an event and one that most of the punters looked forward to.
Saturday night was the jewel in the crown with regular crowds in excess of 800 people. Popular music from the 60s to the present day was played in the main room.
The club had a second room which housed about 260 people. This room was called The Cooler and played mainly dance music. The Cool;er had it's own bar and dance floor and also had a backdrop coloured wall, behind the bar. This wall changed colours electonically and went through hundreds of shades of differing coloured light.
Unfortunately the bulding that housed The Venue was only rented and the owners sold it to a development company and we had to get out when they gained planning permission to knock it down and build apartments.