Located under the Charing Cross Station arches in London, Heaven has welcomed millions of dancers from across the globe through its doors since opening in December 1979. A UK answer to the booming success of New Yorks super clubs proved there was just as big an audience of Disco dancers ready to party in London. The club sought out resident DJs with exciting and fresh selections and opened its doors almost nightly to record spinners and bands. Radically taking gay nightlife from the underground to the mainstream.

In 1985 a weekly Wednesday club night called Pyramid, formally Asylum, became one of the first clubs in the country to play House music. The fresh export from Chicago USA was slow to take up in British clubs and would often empty dance floors that still favoured romantic sounds over rave but space to breathe in clubs like Heaven primed it to the mainstream. By the late 1980s Spectrum and Rage brought Acid House and Breakbeat retrospectively to the masses of movers during weeknight club spots. A true home of eighties rave hysteria, In 1988 The Sun ran the headline ‘Fiver For A Drug Trip To Heaven In Branson Club’ in reference to a Spectrum night.

During the 90s Heaven nurtured the UK drag scene on Wednesday nights at Fruit Machine and by 1998 the club was bringing in Indie fans with a Monday night called Room Two. There has been no limit to the appeal of Heaven through the decades, catering to all with open doors throughout the week, allowing promoters with smaller budgets space to evolve out of peak hours. New waves of sounds and stars finding their way together in space.

Last year Music Venue Trust reported 2023 16% of UK grassroots music venues were lost (125 spaces permanently closed) and 38% of remaining venues experienced financial loss. That’s the same as 2 grassroots music venues closing a week. Factors harming the venues are resoundingly financial such as high energy costs and ‘rent increases averaging 37%’. You can read the full report here.

As well as impacting punters and grassroots venue owners and staff there is the knock on decline of artists beginning their journeys as these venues provide space for artists starting out to perform live. Without small venues that open their doors to newcomer and experimental performers the cultural landscape of music stagnates. Only those with contacts and leg ups are allowed mobility through the creative industries, reports in 2022 show the proportion of working-class actors, musicians and writers shrunk by half since the 1970s.

Support your grassroot venues through staying up to date with your locals, signing petitions and showing up to see live music.