Roger Farnham

Venues used for the Loveliest Nights of the Year

Clip Title	Venues used for the Loveliest Nights of the Year
Interviewee Name	Roger Farnham
Interviewee Role	Workshop member since the late 1970s, involved with fundraising committee, the Board and helped organise Loveliest Night of the Year events
Interviewer Name	Kerry Patterson
Interview Date	25 October 2018
Clip Length	2 minutes 56 seconds

Transcription

RF: The- well I’d been to the- I hadn’t been to the very first one in nineteen eighty, but I’d been to the eighty one, eighty two, eighty three things which had been run by- mostly by the staff etcetera. And they’d been in Kelvingrove and that’d been amazing. Um, there was a bit of a, well maybe, it hadn’t been that tightly budgeted, controlled or whatever, so there was a bit of a rest and then the- eighty five we decided to have another go. Also Ingram Street was falling to bits so there was no- we had to move uh premises, absolutely had to move. Er so, Jacki Parry sucked me into that eighty five committee which was an event that we ran in the City Hall and that had, quite a big committee, and even, like, Anne Robb who we were talking about earlier on, was on that committee as well, yep. So er, yeah the- it turned into quite a big event and- and went quite well […] In eighty seven, I think it was. We ran a thing called the Ugliest Night of the Year as well which was really just turn the thing on its head and er, I think we organised it in about three weeks flat because we had a- a sort of template that we just recycled. So, yep and same location as the- as the Loveliest One had been that year, in the Winter Gardens.



KP: You mentioned that fundraising was a massive- was a real imperative to help refurbish the buildings. Er so, there was- I know that you had things like raffles and-



RF: Yeah, there were usually auctions at them as well and - I mean there was one that actually made quite a lot of money in the Hospitality Inn or whatever that hotel is up in Renfrew Street [edited by interviewee to correct to Cambridge Street, hotel is currently the Hilton Double Tree] which actually did make quite a lot of money at the auction but it wasn’t that exciting. It was in a hotel and was more just like a company dinner dance so wasn’t, being honest, a critical success. Then we got back to being more exotic, so in City Hall we had a big space, this one we moved back to the Winter Gardens where the very first one had been. And then the Briggait came along, which was a big space and it was really just being developed at that stage as a shopping centre but wrong place unfortunately and is now totally different venue. But uh, we had two gigs in there, and it was a great space. In fact it was interesting, the second Briggait one we- ‘cause we’d learnt from our mistakes in the first one which had been successful, but the sound had been absolutely awful because it was full of glass fronted shops so the acoustics were appalling. So our quick fix was to cover up those glass fronts but we uh, we talked a lot of the artists in the studio into making murals and hanging murals over the glass so, er, all of a sudden we had a very large exhibition and a very fast track exhibition of murals, which got a lot of publicity through the Herald and things. That was good for it, mhm.