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Promoter campaigns to make Berghain-style ‘party fort’ on the Thames
By Aly Barchi | Published on Thursday 21 August 2014
A live promotions co has launched a cash drive to take over a fairly bleak-looking one-time ‘grain fort’ in the middle of the River Thames, and make it into a night-and-day party platz in the style of Berlin-based hotspot Berghain.
Scottish promoter Minival is looking to buy the nineteenth century fort, which sits off the Isle Of Grain in the middle of the Thames Estuary, and transform it into a “Berghain or [soon-to-close Dutch superclub] Trouw in the middle of the sea”.
The aim of the campaign, active now on GoFundMe, is to raise the fort’s £500,000 for-sale price, and an additional £250,000 to make the building ‘safe’. BTW, the fort sits on stilts in the middle of the sea, and is only reachable at low tide via a “slimy brick causeway”, or at high tide via boat. Healthy and safety be damned, I say!
Taking, like me, the idealistic tack, Minival’s appeal reads: “Imagine a place you could go to, to get away from it all. With the worlds best DJs and music running continuously. A place where you are allowed the true freedom to express yourself among friends. It sounds ridiculous but imagine if what we set out to do was accomplished, we call on everyone, for the love of music, for the love of the party, get involved. Dream to dream”.
Meanwhile representing ‘the man’, the estate agent trying to sell the thing, one Nigel Day, says: “I’m not going to lie to you, it’s an absolute monster. I thought I was OK on heights, but there are bits of it where I was clinging on to the walls: you realise if you fall you aren’t coming back in a hurry”.
So go on, kids, give a fiver and let’s make the ‘party fort’ dream a reality. There’s already over £50,000 in the bank at this early stage, so who knows, maybe this wild idea isn’t as wild as it seems. Dream to dream.