The Late Room has had a change of management and have hiked the hire charge from £130 to £470! This used to be a great place to play, but unless you're putting on a big night with several bands that play mainstream music, or some sort of club night, this puts it out of reach of most self-promoted gigs. Especially if you play something that's a bit left field, and you don't want to charge the earth on the door. The management charge for the room hire, the staff costs (PA and security) - it seems they want to offload all the risks to the bands, but still take the profit from the bar (you can if want put down a deposit of £500 against the bar not making sufficient profit, £1,500) - so if you do go down this route, make sure your friends get really pissed). As the city centre gets more and more corporate, what is happening to venues? The rents venues pay go up and up, local venues get taken over by national or internationally owned groups, and the emphasis becomes solely about money, not about new music. The scope for putting on something a bit different in the city centre seems to be getting narrower and narrower - no wonder the best acoustic nights are in Levenshulme and Chorlton.

So let's hear it for the venues that still do put the music first, wherever you are, and the musicians who also run music nights - and if any of the bigger venues out there want to review their hire charges, then let us know!