As of today (26 September) the figure stands at a whopping £228,989: fans recently donating between £30 and £40 a time. Top donations are celebrated on their website which are generously in their thousands. CODA has the top donation at £6001 closely followed by Manchester’s The Warehouse Project at £6000 organised by the likes of Clams Casino, DJ Hype, and Wiley.
In a detailed statement on their website, Fabric organisers are keen to acknowledge the tragic deaths and insist they will “always be committed to caring for our customers and operating within the law.”
We are fabric.
This is not how it ends.
The police have revoked our licence to present music, art and culture; something we have been doing with great pride for nearly two decades. They abused archaic licencing laws in order to close us down and they will continue to do so if we do not come together and take action now.
This is about more than fabric – an entire way of life is under threat.
Mxdwn has followed the closure since it was first announced in August (see our article here) and more recently when it was announced Fabric was to be permanently closed (see the follow up article here). But now, as well as private donations and donations provided by the London music scene, famous DJs have now joined in to help save Fabric.
Club owners and managing director, Gary Kilbey, are now heavily into preparation to try and overturn the decision to revoke their licence forcing the permanent closure of Fabric by Islington Borough Council.
One of the bigger names sad about the closure of Fabric is Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac. Interviewed in the London Evening Standard (Friday 23 September) Annie Mac – whose AMP night began at Fabric and she had also held her 30th birthday party there – said:
“When it closed I was overwhelmed. They gave us a chance at the very start. I grew up there as a DJ, spent many, many nights there both DJing and watching other people, learning.
Annie Mac is keen to echo the sadness about the two tragic deaths but sees Fabric as an institution to the regular music scene:
“. . . if somewhere like Fabric is gonna be shut down, it sends a message to anyone trying to open a club or put on a dance music event that life is gonna be really tough – and if it’s gonna be very hard to do it, people just won’t do it.”
It seems the closure of Fabric has had a huge effect on the music scene and Fabric will have the last words in order to raise awareness of this and to welcome further generous donations:
Do you realise how much London has suffered already, and just what’s at stake if we stand by and do nothing? If the answer’s yes, join the fight to save our culture.
