Brixton Academy to host series of “test events” ahead of reopening
Lambeth Council gave permission for the South London venue to operate again last week so long as it meets "extensive and robust" safety conditions following the fatal crowd crush in December
Brixton Academy will hold a series of "test events" before officially reopening after Lambeth Council gave permission for the venue to operate again last week so long as it meets "extensive and robust" safety conditions.
The South London concert venue is expected to announce several "test events" and a timeline to reopening, Rolling Stone reports, since closing on 15th December after a fatal crowd crush at a Asake show killed two people and left another in critical condition to the hospital, where she remains. Following the Met Police's spring application to revoke the Brixton Academy's license, Lambeth Council held a public last week which concluded in two days and granted the venue the ability to reopen pending meeting 77 conditions "designed to promote public safety".
A statement from Academy Music Group (AMG), which operates the Brixton Academy and other O2 Academy venues, reads: "Over the past nine months the venue's importance to the local community and the live music scene in the UK has been made clear through first-hand professional testimony, campaigns, and petitions as well as economic assessments demonstrating the financial impact to the surrounding area caused by the closure.
"Academy Music Group is determined to learn all appropriate lessons from the night of December 15, 2022. Working at a senior level with experts across all disciplines, AMG presented a comprehensive, multi-faceted response for the licensing authorities to support their case for the safe and secure reopening of the venue."
AP Security, which AMG hired for Brixton Academy, will not work at the venue again, the Guardian reports.
A petition to save Brixton Academy received more than 115,000 signatures and was supported by the likes of The Prodigy.
