Asfordby Soul 3 Nr Melton Mowbrayleicester

A new venue and after the first 2 , well supported, come and give it a try you won't be disappointed, sounds people want to hear, be good to see Bob Fletcher behind the decks at this great little soul club

Andy

This will be my first visit to this venue and I can't wait, heard some great things about this club so lets get the place buzzin. See you friday night. 

Bob fletcher.  Ps yes andy jimmy is in the box

First visit got there early. Thought good venue and brilliant music, but ! Piss artists invaded the dance floor men and women couldn't find a dry spot to dance. One of the d js asked the punters not to take drinks on the floor and was met with abuse and hand jestures and totally ignored. Do not waste your money. Such a shame, it could have had great potential.

Soon be friday, hope you are ready to boogie

see u there m8

Not long now

On 25/09/2016 at 22:06, thefletchers said:

This will be my first visit to this venue and I can't wait, heard some great things about this club so lets get the place buzzin. See you friday night. 

Bob fletcher.  Ps yes andy jimmy is in the box

Nice one Bob love Jimmy jones

On 26/09/2016 at 22:54, NG1soul said:

First visit got there early. Thought good venue and brilliant music, but ! Piss artists invaded the dance floor men and women couldn't find a dry spot to dance. One of the d js asked the punters not to take drinks on the floor and was met with abuse and hand jestures and totally ignored. Do not waste your money. Such a shame, it could have had great potential.

Sorry you had a bad experience NG1 but you get teething problems with new venues, we will make sure in the future that anyone with drinks stay off the dance floor, think its wrong for you to say do not waste your money, its a great night with music people want to hear.No soul police here. think you were exaggerating about the amount,we cleaned up after and the floor was fine, loads of talc but not wet, hope you will try it again sometime. we willmake sure the dance floor stays drink free

Hi NG1

Apologies for the length of this article but I believe the issues you raise deserve a full explanation.
Further to "Old but nimble"'s comments, my wife and I are the organisers and promoters (and DJs) for Asfordby Soul. We have put a huge amount of effort into creating a popular, well supported, clean and fun venue here. We welcome feedback, good or bad, it's the way forward, but you can imagine we are dismayed to see your comments. However, our perception of events appear to be somewhat different from your own:

For our first event in July, we tried to separate the dance area from the seating and drinking area to discourage drink on the dance floor. However, the overwhelming feedback from the customers was that they wanted the tables and chairs around the outside of the room to give a bigger dance area, which we did. From that point of view, very successful but not everyone wants to sit and as it gets busier with more standing around the edge of the dance floor there will be those encroaching on the floor with drinks. It happens everywhere with similar seating arrangements when busy, and we were.

Yes, there was a (small) party who arrived mid evening who it became apparent had certainly been enjoying a good time elsewhere before arriving, but their behaviour, whilst exuberant, was not threatening or aggressive and as far as I am aware did not become offensive or a problem to others. They were amongst those (non soulies) that took drinks onto the dance floor but certainly responded positively when I asked them not to do so. Our guest DJ Mick Jay, did ask people to leave the dance floor with their drinks. My beef would be with venues that don’t do this, as it happens almost everywhere occasionally, especially with 1^st time visitors who don't know the "ropes". I moved through the audience throughout the night reminding people to take their drinks to the side and I did not receive the abuse claimed.

The actual problem was we were packed, which surely has to be a good thing? As for nowhere to dance because of drinks spilt on the floor… Yes, somebody did drop their drink. It happens (though hopefully not too often!) but it was mopped up straight away by one of our staff and, of course, the floor was wet from this until it had a chance to dry out, which it did. But with a lot of people present, even a temporary issue like this can cause difficulties, accepted! With the tables around the outside of the room, half the people have to cross the dance floor with their drinks to get from the bar to their seats, and accidents will happen. That is a far cry from being “invaded by piss artists”

Fortunately, we have received many (and I mean “many”) comments from people who thoroughly enjoyed themselves and so far yours is the only negative. I do appreciate that, just as many don’t bother to say thanks, equally, many don’t bother to complain. We do take on board your comments (as stated by “old but nimble”) but feel that, for what ever reason, you perceived an abnormally negative view of the event that others didn’t see, possibly exacerbated by the sometimes crowded environment. However, I hope that you will give us some margin of judgement on this and try us again. I don’t think that £4 could be described as a waste of anybody’s money ;-)

BTW, the hall has a fire limit of 210 people, but due to necessary space for dancing we voluntarily limit numbers to 140. We’ll see how this goes but if 140 continually proves to be too many for the venue we would consider reducing further but on a typical night more people would be seated in which case there wouldn’t be a problem. We wouldn’t want to turn people away if not necessary. Being too busy is a nice problem to have. No doubt there is still a novelty factor and after a while the numbers may drop naturally. I hope not, but it is likely.
Hoping this re-assures you.

1 hour ago, Peter Woodcock said:

Hi NG1

Apologies for the length of this article but I believe the issues you raise deserve a full explanation.
Further to "Old but nimble"'s comments, my wife and I are the organisers and promoters (and DJs) for Asfordby Soul. We have put a huge amount of effort into creating a popular, well supported, clean and fun venue here. We welcome feedback, good or bad, it's the way forward, but you can imagine we are dismayed to see your comments. However, our perception of events appear to be somewhat different from your own:

For our first event in July, we tried to separate the dance area from the seating and drinking area to discourage drink on the dance floor. However, the overwhelming feedback from the customers was that they wanted the tables and chairs around the outside of the room to give a bigger dance area, which we did. From that point of view, very successful but not everyone wants to sit and as it gets busier with more standing around the edge of the dance floor there will be those encroaching on the floor with drinks. It happens everywhere with similar seating arrangements when busy, and we were.

Yes, there was a (small) party who arrived mid evening who it became apparent had certainly been enjoying a good time elsewhere before arriving, but their behaviour, whilst exuberant, was not threatening or aggressive and as far as I am aware did not become offensive or a problem to others. They were amongst those (non soulies) that took drinks onto the dance floor but certainly responded positively when I asked them not to do so. Our guest DJ Mick Jay, did ask people to leave the dance floor with their drinks. My beef would be with venues that don’t do this, as it happens almost everywhere occasionally, especially with 1^st time visitors who don't know the "ropes". I moved through the audience throughout the night reminding people to take their drinks to the side and I did not receive the abuse claimed.

The actual problem was we were packed, which surely has to be a good thing? As for nowhere to dance because of drinks spilt on the floor… Yes, somebody did drop their drink. It happens (though hopefully not too often!) but it was mopped up straight away by one of our staff and, of course, the floor was wet from this until it had a chance to dry out, which it did. But with a lot of people present, even a temporary issue like this can cause difficulties, accepted! With the tables around the outside of the room, half the people have to cross the dance floor with their drinks to get from the bar to their seats, and accidents will happen. That is a far cry from being “invaded by piss artists”

Fortunately, we have received many (and I mean “many”) comments from people who thoroughly enjoyed themselves and so far yours is the only negative. I do appreciate that, just as many don’t bother to say thanks, equally, many don’t bother to complain. We do take on board your comments (as stated by “old but nimble”) but feel that, for what ever reason, you perceived an abnormally negative view of the event that others didn’t see, possibly exacerbated by the sometimes crowded environment. However, I hope that you will give us some margin of judgement on this and try us again. I don’t think that £4 could be described as a waste of anybody’s money ;-)

BTW, the hall has a fire limit of 210 people, but due to necessary space for dancing we voluntarily limit numbers to 140. We’ll see how this goes but if 140 continually proves to be too many for the venue we would consider reducing further but on a typical night more people would be seated in which case there wouldn’t be a problem. We wouldn’t want to turn people away if not necessary. Being too busy is a nice problem to have. No doubt there is still a novelty factor and after a while the numbers may drop naturally. I hope not, but it is likely.
Hoping this re-assures you.
 

well put Pete, like you I never seen any abuse to the djs or staff who asked for No Drinks to be taken on the dance floor, no different to other venues, I have seen them at Cotgrave and Grantham with drinks in hand on the floor, Like you say these are 1st timers and soon get to know not to take drinks on the floor, and feel the comment about waste of money was out of order and not called for.

What a great night we had last night, another full house and all the DJs did us proud, Big thanks to Bob and Carol Fletcher, what a great couple they are a credit to the soul scene and full of life, great set by Bob and kept the floor busy and thanks for playing Jimmy Jones it pleased me and Carole and a few others with taste haha. If you want a fun night out come and visit us you will not be disappointed KTF

Andy

Thanks for a great night out, really enjoyed ourselves not just the djing but the whole experience,  what a fantastic crowd and all they wanted to do was dance, hope to see you all again soon

Bob & Carole

Well Andy great to see you being honest about your venue and sticking up for the right side of the soul side of things and you know yourself that you will always get the one who is not happy but these things happen and as promotors you have to take everyone's views on board and sort them out  to keep everyone happy the only request I have is that you don't mention other venues when the criticism is directed at asfordby not Cotgrave or Grantham atb Trev 

1 minute ago, trev said:

Well Andy great to see you being honest about your venue and sticking up for the right side of the soul side of things and you know yourself that you will always get the one who is not happy but these things happen and as promotors you have to take everyone's views on board and sort them out  to keep everyone happy the only request I have is that you don't mention other venues when the criticism is directed at asfordby not Cotgrave or Grantham atb Trev 

Just pointing out Trev that things happen at other venues as well, We all know the true soulie will never take drinks on the dancefloor, I wasn't trying to shift the argument just stating that it does happen at other events, see you next week

Andy