Community Ownership Story

In 2007 the owners of Komedia, an arts and entertainment venue operating in Brighton, were invited by BANES Council to convert The Beau Nash into mixed use live entertainment. The Grade 2 listed building had opened in 1908 as the first cinema in the West of England but had sat derelict for a number of years. Komedia Bath opened in November 2008 picking up the National Constructing Excellence Award for the Best Renovation of a Listed Building in the UK. Over the following years, with a wide programme of comedy, music, cabaret, spoken word and community events, Komedia Bath became part of the cultural fabric of the city and the region

In 2017, the owners chose to take the bold step to offer to cede control of the business to the local community, ultimately becoming one of the first community owned venues in the country.

Back then, many pubs had been saved from the threat of closure by their local communities coming together, chipping in and taking ownership. But there wasn’t a model in place for doing the same kind of thing with venues. Still, the owners and management team were inspired by the concept and believed that it was the way forward – setting a model for independent venues across the country. Many others have now done the same, including Bristol’s Exchange, Le Pub in Newport and UPP Oxford. 

We had a target of £350,000 and offered shares for the minimum investment of £250, as well as accepting smaller donations. We enlisted the help of Crowdfunder UK to help us navigate the campaign and our team spent lots of time going out and about to chat with the members of the local community, doing crack-of-dawn radio interviews and even putting on a fundraising gala at the venue to raise awareness of the campaign. 

We are delighted to say that, with your help and some match funding from Big Society Capital, we reached our target 68 days later and were able to begin the legal transition from a Limited Company to a Community Benefit Society. We won’t lie, this part of the process took a lot longer than we had anticipated, but we got there in the end and have been registered with the Financial Conduct Authority under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 as a Community Benefit Society (registration number: 8079) since 2019.

Aside from the impressive sounding legalese, the really cool thing is that this means we now have 227 Members who each own a share of the business and who each have a say when it comes to certain matters of the Society. One investment – whether £250 or £2,500 – means one vote, so no single Member can literally shout louder than anyone else.  

Additionally, becoming a CBS has meant that protections are now in place and Komedia Bath will never trade as anything but a community-focused entertainment venue.

We now have a Board of Directors that consists of  Members, employees and others who have been co-opted from the local community to bring expertise in certain fields – such as accessibility, education, the music industry or the business sector. As well as board meetings, we hold an Annual General Meeting to help steer the venue, allow Members to vote on important decisions and to keep everyone up-to-date with how the business is trading. 

Since converting to a CBS, we have seen some of the strongest years of trading Komedia Bath has ever had – and that’s factoring in a global pandemic and a cost of living crisis. As we have sadly seen so many other venues around the country succumb to these pressures, we consider ourselves extremely lucky to have had the support of our amazing community, and plan to keep on growing and improving on what we do every year. 

Since the very beginning, the Komedia ethos has been rooted in a love of live performance and a belief in its power to add to the sum of human happiness. But, since becoming a CBS, we’ve thought more about what this might mean in the context of our immediate community and have devised a set of core values that we now live by. 

Our Community Values: