The Best Venues
A Guide to deciphering the best ‘Venues Guide’.
A Guide to the Soul Source Events guide and my personal favourites.
The Soul-Source Events guide is one of the most comprehensive ‘what’s on’ guides in any musical genre. But a little deciphering will help users get the most out of it.
People having seen youtube videos of packed Blackpool ballrooms could be forgiven for thinking Northern Soul is in a rude state of health. But these big events appeal to a wide range of folk that some hardliners disparagingly call ‘tourists’.
Away from these (once, twice) thrice-a-year marque events, Northern Soul’s tipping-point has been breached (for multiple reasons, which I’ve opined elsewhere), so now is the time to make that first or last pilgrimage… while you still can.
In the intersts of journalistic integrity and what Private Eye refers to as ‘critical rigour’ (!), I’ve spent a good few nights ‘re-living my youth’ on Northern Dancefloors of late.
Anyhow, I’ve re-defined the soul-source listings into three home-made categories: Local, Marque and Traditional-Hardcore.
Local Venues
You’ll find a monthly soul night within easy reach of most major towns in the UK. The majority of them are local get-togethers, organised by groups of record-collecting friends from a given area and the social benefits aren’t dissimilar to the Church Socials and Working Men’s Clubs of yesteryear.
Generally, these are frequented by locals for regular dance-and-catch-ups, and visited by groups from further afield, who often travel along with ‘guest’ DJ’s.
Marque Events
These gigs are predominantly organised by Richard, Kev Roberts and/or Neil Rushton (sometimes a combination), and the three of them have been at the helm of Northern/soul promotions since the late 70’s.
These guys have got the resources, connections and experience to organise and fill some of the most spectacular ballrooms in the world.
Traditional-Hardcore
The wide-eyed, fast-beating heart of this category is the dwindling number of all-nighters, many held in atmospheric venues that have changed little since the 1970’s.
These venues are where you’ll find the most serious record collectors and dancers, who’ll still be at full-beam on the floor come closing time.
Best Venue for the Young
Room at the Top, Aatma
Jordan Wilson and Conor White’s mini-nighter in Manchester’s Northern Quarter has a great underground vibe and is a long-overdue attempt to cater for a younger audience, and probably the only venue where the under 35’s outnumber everyone else. Like a young Richard, I always feel Jordan has a business plan and I hope this back-to-basements policy succeeds – and a wise place to start afresh is in a busy University City.
The Best Marque Venues
Winter Gardens Soul Festival
In any other year but 2023, it’s held in June. This is Richard’s crown jewel and an unbeatable smorgasbord of soul music genres, in one (plus 6 other rooms) of the world’s most spectacular ballroom dance venues.
Expensive on a student-size budget, but worth the money for the sheer grandeur – to my knowledge, this is the best event of its kind anywhere.
King’s Hall Stoke
Now an annual Nighter. Another great dance floor venue in a perfect location for train travel. Not quite up to the Blackpool ballrooms, but the Midlands always provides a good crop of dancers.
Tower Ballroom, Blackpool
The Tower Ballroom’s recently restored dancefloor alone makes it worth the journey.
And Colin Curtis on the 5th floor provides a refreshing alternative to an often repetitive and safe (as opposed to ‘classy’) ballroom playlist, even though the too-small clip-together 5th floor is like dancing on a jigsaw (the carpet’s better).
Ritz Reunion and New Century Hall
Annual event. Two minutes from Victoria Station, quality restoration, good lighting, sound and dance floor, filled with people who never forgot how to dance and enjoy themselves.
Not as good as The Ritz, but way better then expected. And as old habits die hard, colliding musical styles still part the dance floor down the middle!
Perhaps it needs a revised poster from Shelvo, stating: LEVINE MUST RETURN! – just ban him from the microphone, playing ‘disco’ or chatting Doctor Who.
The Best of Traditional-Hardcore
If you want to get a feel for the real Northern Soul (or as real as it gets), and what remains of the hardcore crew, look for the black tag on soul-source listings and head for the Nighters.
Sadly, we’re approaching the inevitable tipping point for a music scene with no Plan B, that has largely been kept afloat by two successive generations from the 70’s and 80’s. And the law of ever-decreasing circles determines there will soon be too few people to sustain the commercial viability of some excellent venues.
Get to the nighters while you still can.
Swinton Palais: Nighter
This is a dark, dingy ballroom on the outskirts of Manchester with the perfect hardcore vibe.
This place deserves to be full, but numbers at the last event weren’t great.
One to visit while you still can. And Boxing Day night is the perfect time to make an effort.
Whitchurch Civic Hall: Nighter
Great venue that’s been around since the 70’s, in the centre of a gorgeous Shropshire market town deserving of an extra night’s stay.
Nuneaton Coop: (former?) Nighter
Mark Freeman’s last Nuneaton All-Nighter happened on the 19th of August 2023 – or will someone else take it on?
Concrete Coop with a great dance floor in the centre of Nuneaton that perfectly suits the nighter crowd and when they open the windows you can hear the music belting out across the town.
Check listings for the shape of any future events.
Dark Horses Tamworth: Nighter
The favourite event of many a wide-eyed, ‘battle hardened’ nighter fiend, where the dance-floor usually throbs from start to finish.
Culcheth
A mixture of local/traditional soul night and Culcheth Village Club is a good modern venue. Some 18 months ago I saw the lovely Bob Hinsley for the first time in decades. I’ve known Bob since I was a 13 year old in Prince of Wales checks and he’s truly one of the nice guys… with a great record collection.
Culcheth is one of the busier venues and full of knowledgeable soul folk like Bob.
evvy evvy 
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