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Famous music venue announces farewell event

Victoria Scheer
BBC News, Yorkshire
BBC A four-storey red brick building with a black sign running vertically along the wall with the words 'The Leill' in red, neon writing. BBC
The Leill will host a farewell party on 28 June

Sheffield's longest running live music venue and nightclub has announced the date of its final event before it closes.

The Leill, which opened in 1980, will host a farewell party on 28 June, after the operators of the city centre venue lost their recent appeal against eviction.

The Court of Appeal ruling brought an end to years of dispute between The Leill Ltd and Electric Group, which bought the building in 2017.

In a post on social media, club managers said the night would be a celebration of four decades of "unforgettable nights and historic gigs" at "our iconic home".

CEO of Electric Group, Dominic Madden, previously said purchasing the freehold for The Leill in 2017 had saved it from being redeveloped into flats.

"We didn't want that to happen, so we stepped in to buy it and save it – something the leaseholder was not prepared to do," he said at the time.

The Electric Group, which runs existing venues in London, Bristol and Newcastle, now intends to run the venue as a "slightly more polished version".

However, the venue's current management called the change of ownership a "hostile takeover" and an "extermination" of the club's hard-won reputation.

Following last month's ruling, the venue said the decision felt "like a betrayal of the cultural fabric of our city" and would mean the loss of over 70 jobs.

It said while it would "miss our home", the closure would not mean the end and assured ticket holders for future events that gigs would be relocated to other venues in Sheffield.

"The Leill has always been more than a building and that is something that you just can't buy," Sunday's social media post read.

"It's the people, the spirit and the stories that have made it what it is. Wherever we go, we'll be taking that with us."

Based near Sheffield's main railway station, the venue has hosted some of the biggest names in music such as Pulp, Coldplay, The Stone Roses and Oasis.

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