Northwich Plaza Northwich reviews by real event-goers

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Fairport were amazing but the venue is the pits. There was no seating and given the average age of the audience this should have been clear on the promotion and tickets sales but of course not so many tickets would be sold. We tried to get tickets to see Fairport at the Liverpool Phil but it was sold old. Can’t imagine how Fairport felt playing in Northwich Plaza the day after Liverpool Phil. what an insult to them and a insult to the audience. Noticed on the Plaza’s website there was no pictures of aged people sitting on the floor, just chairs and tables which would have been more pleasurable and comfortable. The Plaza is simply a dreadful venue which we would not go to again.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Amazing venue ,you should get in touch with the Barsteward sons of Val Doonican!! One of your local bands ,youâ??d sell out very quickly ð??great evening ð??ð??ð??

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

The band were fantastic and granted hat their main hits were in the 60s and 70s, obviously the majority of fans at the concerts would be in their 70s plus. I understand that there were about 250 tickets sold and there were approximately 30 chairs at most. When you know the audience are mainly going to be pensioners. then obviously they will want to sit down at a concert lasting approx 3 hours.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

As a fan of Fairport I knew it would be good and as someone who was born and bred in Northwich I know the venue very well. It's good news that the old cinema now hosts music events of this calibre. A great friendly atmosphere as you'd expect at a Fairport gig. The tickets weren't cheap, especially with the added booking fee. I bought four tickets, I wanted to treat some friends and it cost me nearly £120. I heard on the night ticket prices had come down and I imagine it was possibly due to poor sales. I'm sure if the event had been better advertised the hall could have been full. No complaints from me though, myself and my mates thoroughly enjoyed the evening. Bar prices were a pleasant surprise to a lot of people.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Good gig but more seats might have helped.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Needs more seating and real ale on bar. Toilets need modernising, otherwise great venue

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Great venue, but we should have been told that it was mostly standing - in fact most people sat on the floor and some even brought their own picnic chairs! Chairs that were there were scattered randomly around the floor area - not a lot of organisation

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

fantastic

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

We enjoyed the concert, but we’re not happy that this was a standing event. We found nothing online telling us this. We would probably not have paid £26 plus booking fee to stand for 3.5 hours.
Can you please shed any light on this? Thank you.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Having seen Fairport many times I thought I knew what to expect, a roll out of old classics, played consummately and with a crowd singing along. This was true but only partially.
They arrived on stage and sat down ready to preform. The concert began and it was like rediscovering a favourite album that had been hidden at the back of the record library for years.
The music was fresh and vibrant and the selection a step away from the classic favourites selection, (which is often the mark of a Fairport concert) with old rarely played tracks being performed, in amongst new pieces. This felt like a fresh approach to the use of material long since buried under the 54 years of classics that the band can fall back on.
As the evening progressed some of the classics appeared and the end was the wonderfully predictable triumvirate of Sandy Denny's stunning yet heart rending Who Knows Where the Time Goes?, the singalong classic Matty Groves and the traditional finish of Meet on the Ledge.
This was a Fairport who had been given time to play with their back catalogue and produce a fresh set of classics to a hugely appreciative audience.
I did miss some of my favourites, Hiring Fair, Red and Gold but, hey, they will come round again and I will be there.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Venue a little on the basic side but nothing to deflect from a great evening. Fairport as ever excellent value drawing an incredible back catalogue along with new songs seamlessly.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Great music. Good venue though a few more seats would have been welcome. Pity there is no real ale at the bar.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Could do with some seats in the venue for the older folk. Music was great.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Venue only had about 30 loose chairs, most people had to stand or sit on the floor, fortunately we got there early and got one, otherwise would have had to go home. Astonishing especially as the audience for this band is known to be mainly older age group. Limited bar menu eg no red wine or crisps etc.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Well, where to start, I walked into a lovely old building, evidence of its previous existence as a cinema was difficult to miss!
The initial panorama was that of someone stood at the top of the field at Cropredy festiva looking down toward the stage- albeit in miniature- toward a stage that was almost as big as the one deployed at Fairoorts Cropredy Convention!
Hardly any seating, which didn't bother me, but given the audience demographic some nice comfy chairs would have been nice.
Some brought their own deck hairs a la Cropredy, all we needed were a few flags scattered about and we'd have had a Cropredy away from Cropredy!
There was a support act who's name I didn't catch, he was reminiscent of Mark Fry - if anyone's never heard of Mr. Fry try youtube for his Dreaming With Alice album and the folk noir epic The Witch - with bits of Michael Chapman and Ed Sheeran thrown into the mix, lyrically a bit dark and introspective, but I can imagine there are far worse ways to while away twenty five minutes.
Fairport came on at around 20:00 hours and from the well worn opener Walk A While to gnarly old campaigner Matty Groves - about time they ditched that banjo and came up with something else - the boys turned in a classy, not to mention classic set, covering most of the tracks from their Full House album along with plenty of representation for their most recent album, Shuffle & Go, which is their strongest in many a year, along with the song John Condon from the 2018 Myths & Heroes disc, an apparent band and fan favourite that perpetuates the myth of a child soldier killed on the Somme.
Special mentions for incendiary versions of Sloth, Steam Punkery, Honour & Praise, Doctor Of Physick a sprightly Bankruoturee and a welcome return of the Nicol & Swarbrick deep cut Close To The Wind.
Simon Nicols' guitar playing is exemplary and it was amazing to watch him play on Sloth and Bankruptured, long may he continue, another solo album please Simon!!
Peggy of course is the glue that really does hold it all together and Ric Sanders despite the cheesy and unnecessary comedy showcase proves time and again why he's admired a d in demand for his fiddle playing, if not his ' comedy's.
Chris Leslie remains, defiantly their chief songwriter and multi- instrumentist and gave a excellent a countdown of himself on a array of instruments, lose the harmonica though Chris, they may work for Lindisfarne but you're in Fairport and adding harmonica on stuff like Condon , tw**d, and Honour & Praise - unnecessary don't particularly enhance the songs, I cringe tbh, I may be in a minority but I do. Mr Conway on the drums had an unimpeachable record, but I do hanker for Dave Mattacks era Fairport drumming, though that will never come again there is a massive DM shaped hole in the rhythm section.
And there's the rub, sometimes, this most glorious of bands, one I have followed since the 1960's at times seem like they're treading water, o occasionally they veer da generously close to the cheesy cod C&W beloved of turns that tread the boards at the local.Working Mens Club seven days a week.
However, last night was low on cheese, high on content, filled with class and great music, by the encore of their signature song Meet On The Ledge everyone seemed to be in their feet, like a proper Cropredy Saturday night at around 23:45 hours, and the lads got a richly deserved ed standing ovation.
Ticket prices were reasonableband pitched at the level one would expect to pay to see Fairport at a provincial venue, that said, if certain individuals pay out the best part of thirty quid for a ticket to see what is nominally an acoustic gig, why do they insist in talking loudly throughout that gig, it always annoys and mystified me, kudos to the man who told the chattering classes to shut up because people were trying to listen to Fairport, I'll buy you a beer at Cropredy next year!

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Surprised to arrive at the venue and find there was only a few seats available. All these were already taken so had to stand or seat on the floor. The tickets seemed expensive for a gig were you had to stand. There was no information provide at the time of booking to make you aware of this.Room was cold as well. Did enjoy the band.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

The venue lacked enough chairs . People were allowed to bring their own beach style chairs but this should have been advertised . However Fairport Convention were as brilliant as ever .

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

Thoroughly enjoyable night, marred by the lack of seating, nothing mentioned about this in any advertising we saw or when we purchased tickets.

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

The music was as ever superb but was very surprised that the gig tuned out to be not really seated - seems the venue has no seats and the promoter is supposed to supply chairs. In this case they provided about 60 seats on a first come first serve basis (which sort of made it worse) - first reaction from this on the door was that it wasn't advertised as seated - so we must assume the default is standing apparently - but given Fairport's likely audience demographic it seems a big miss - the band of similar age did have seats of course - we did manage to get a chair for one of our party who struggles walking due to a bad hip but not good enough for the price I'm afraid, and took the edge of what could have been a great night - shame

Review of An evening with Fairport Convention

An excellent performance at a fantastic newly refurbished venue. Wonderful to have such a place in the centre of Northwich back up and running and hopefully will attract a plethora of acts in the future.