Torture Garden’s New Year’s Eve Special WILL go ahead at Mass as originally planned.

As a result of the venue’s Court appearance this morning to appeal against the closure order made on Monday, the Judge and the police have allowed the venue to open for TG’s party tomorrow. 

Tickets for the event were immediately put back on sale via the shops and the website, but telephone orders have not been possible owing to the volume of phone calls the TG office has been receiving.

After initially believing on Monday that TG would have no choice but to cancel its NYE party and refund ticketholders, the mood of the TG team improved yesterday when they learnt that there was a “more than 80 percent chance” that Mass could successfully appeal the closure.

At the same time, the team managed to secure an alternative venue in Brixton where a TG NYE party, albeit only for 800 people, could be staged if Mass was not successful in its appeal. 

In a statement today, the TG team said they would like to thank all the people who gave their support and advice, as well as “all the TG ticket holders for their incredible understanding in this matter”.

Judging from posts we’ve seen on Facebook and elsewhere, many ticket holders would be just as keen to thank TG for the magnificent effort it put into sorting the problem out.

To manage, at such short notice, and on an incredibly busy party night, to line up an alternative venue to accommodate a good proportion of its advance ticket holders was no small achievement.

Thankfully this fallback option has proved unnecessary, and New Year’s Eve revellers can now look forward to the party they were hoping for at Mass, including shows by Blacklickorish Latex, Jon John, Sinseekers, Amazing Ari, Bubbalicious, Syban, Amrita, Chrys Columbine, Kazaya and more.

See our earlier news item below for the full background to this story.

STOP PRESS: Following last night’s announcement of the likely cancellation of its New Year’s Eve party at Mass, Torture Garden seems more confident today that it will manage to host a NYE party after all.

A call to Charlotte TG at 2.30pm today found her and the rest of the TG team  “out and about” and in the middle of urgent discussions with other possible venues.

She told us that Mass would definitely be appealing the closure notice on Wednesday and that a successful appeal could mean the TG event still going ahead at its original venue.

Failing this, she seemed confident that TG would be able to host a New year’s Eve party at another venue, albeit in a scaled-down form.

Last night’s announcement that TG’s party at Mass was likely not to go ahead was the result of a closure notice being served on the venue by police on Monday morning.

The 28-day closure notice was served because of information received by police about a planned attack on the venue’s security following an incident at another venue last week.  

Neither the threat nor the closure of the venue had anything to do with Torture Garden events at Mass or with the company used for security at those events, said the statement issued by TG last night.

“We don’t expect it to have any effect on future parties at Mass or elsewhere,” it explained, “but it seems that at this very late stage we will no longer be able to use Mass for New Year’s Eve.”

It was thought there was only a very small possibility that Mass might be able to appeal and change the decision in time for the planned TG night to go ahead.

The club had therefore been looking at the possibility of switching to another venue for New Year’s Eve. But of the five venues of suitable size, only the Coronet in Elephant & Castle was not booked for that night, and its management did not feel they could field enough staff to be able to run a safe and organised event.

However, the latest news from TG suggests that even if Mass remains closed and the Coronet is not available, another, smaller venue may still be secured.

TG’s earlier statement had acknowledged that many guests were travelling long distances or even from abroad to attend its event, adding:

“We hope you appreciate that this was completely beyond our control, and totally unexpected at a venue we have used for over ten years.”