Box in Glasgow celebrates its 17th year this month and the man behind it, Steven McColm, couldn’t be happier. This year it not only picked up the HiSpirits award for Best Live Music Venue, but the business has also just had its most successful year ever. Susan Young caught up with him to find out more.
Sheena Easton may have sung about working 9 to 5, but Steven McColm works ‘Non-Stop,’ which is also the name of one of his first businesses. But I will come back to that.
Steven, Director and co-owner of live music venue Box, which picked up the HiSpirits Best Music venue award in August, is a man that is still passionate about his business which celebrates its 17 birthday this month. He tells me, “What’s not to like? It’s like a party every night.” And that was one of the reasons that the venue so impressed the judges of the award and the mystery shoppers because Box is that rarity, a venue that puts on live music, seven nights a week, and doesn’t charge.
Box was also in the news in September when Lewis Capaldi turned up for the venue’s open mic night. He knew co-host Ross Leighton, from top Scottish band Fatherson and Lewis decided to debut his new single ‘Forget Me’ and then bought everyone a drink.
Steven is clearly as passionate about the business as he was when he set it up, and in fact, although he already has 17 years under his belt at Box, during the pandemic he decided to extend the time they had left on the lease for another 20 years! He says, “We are here for the long-term and it is a family business too – wife Cheryl works in it and so do other members of my family – I think I will still be working here at 70… I love it. I love the people that come and the bands that play.
“People say Box is like a village hall because it attracts everyone from 18-60. It’s funny because when we opened people said our idea for Box wouldn’t work. When we opened we were unique. Then bands paid to play – they were given 200 tickets to sell for every gig they played. but that became an Achilles heel for musicians. They hated punting tickets. So we decided to offer entertainment for free, nobody at that time did that. We wanted musicians to just plug in and play.
“People said ‘It won’t work’. But it took off right away. Although for years we didn’t make much – it was a hand-to-mouth and hard work. At the time I thought it might last three years but we kept our margins tight ( and still do) because we had no door money.
“The musicians loved it – and all their friends came to watch them play anyway because who doesn’t like a free gig? So they came in their masses, even on a Monday night. The bands also increased their fan bases, because it was free people wandered in to see live music and they had no obligation to stay – it was like a revolving door. The bands also had to engage with the customers – so we would encourage them to throw in a cover, and then put a new song in, so a fan base of 30/40 would swell to 60/70 and that’s how the business snowballed.”
Today the business spends around £200K a year on live entertainment – most of the musicians are full-time, and the bar also gets a lot of new unsigned bands who want to play at the venue. Says Steven, “They know we give them regular work – we do music all week, every night, rain hail or shine, People know there is always something on and something good.” However, he admits, “We have never worked as hard as we are working now.”
And he also puts it down to the pandemic. “We saw the efforts of all our past hard work disappear. Usually, I don’t stress about things I can’t control, but that was a unique situation.” The business kept afloat by doing online shows and producing and delivering bottled cocktails and what money was made allowed him to reinvest in the business. Says Steven, “We kept in touch with our live artists and paid them to do the online shows. We probably paid them a bit more than we could afford, but perhaps that is now one of the reasons that we are currently having our best year ever. Although it is a combination of lots of things fundamentally we work very hard and we have a good team. I was also ahead of the curve when it came to controlling expenditures. I have attacked every cost. We already had our electricity locked in, and I talked to people we had contracts with and sometimes took a longer contract to get a better price.
“It’s not the sexy side of the business, but we are hard on the bottom line so we are not squeezing the entertainment costs. I will always try and save elsewhere – people first and foremost want entertainment and I really focus on that. I also pay my staff well and have a bonus structure in place and I keep my managers well informed. I tell them – when they come to work we want to make a profit and they need to know how we make money and how we can save it. It is a team effort.
“But although most of my management team have been with me since the start of our journey I want my management to do it for themselves too – if they want to. I would be happy for them. Everything I learned when I worked in my early years allowed me to dream of owning my own place. That’s why I get them involved and try and give them a grounding in the whole business. I try and inspire the young people who work for me, but I do emphasise that they have to work hard, and pay their dues, I did, but that the rewards are there.”
Steven started out in the music business despite having done a college course in Business, French and Marketing. He got involved with a techno band in the ‘90s called Q-Tex, whose biggest hit was ‘Power of Love.’ Says Steven, “We toured all over the place, and when I left I started promoting my own shows. I called the business Non-Stop and I was quite successful.
“I went to work for the legendary James Mortimer who had Victorias and Hamilton Palace and Fury Murray’s as promotions manager. These were the ‘the’ places to be in Glasgow and Lanarkshire at the time. It was there surrounded by James and his family Lynn, Annette, Christine and the late Donna and the late Steven Baxter where I learned loads about the hospitality business. I used to work 80/90 hours a week day and night and that’s when I realised hard work paid off.
“I then got headhunted to work with Scottish and Newcastle who had ten nightclubs in Scotland at the time. “I became a Business Development Manager for S&N and looked after clubs from Aberdeen to Edinburgh. Then Luminar Leisure bought them – at the time they were the largest nightclub operator in the UK with 25 clubs in Scotland and 340 in the UK on. It was fantastic. They had clubs like Archaos in Glasgow, Mardi Gras in Dundee and Glasgow’s Savoy and so many more. It really floated my boat and I had a great time.
But after a few years, they decided to exit Scotland – they didn’t understand the Scottish market and asked me to relocate to Milton Keynes but I didn’t want to move.” Then fate stepped in – a friend told Steven of a site on Sauchiehall Street, a venue which was formerly The Blob Shop, had come on the market. Says Steven “I was used to venues that took a 1,000 but it only had a capacity of 267, I thought it might be too small. But I decided to buy it anyway with a friend – he later came out of the business. But it took a year to get it open – there were all sorts of problems. It was loosely based on the idea of an American dive bar… we took influences from bars like House of Blues, and BB Kings – I loved the musicians they had playing. They had resident bands and we now have resident bands here too.”
At the beginning of the journey, Steven only employed staff who were also in bands, but he admits, “There was a lot of rock and roll debauchery that came with that. So we started recruiting people who were musically focused. If people don’t like music, they would not like working at Box. So we try and recruit people now with a real passion for music they are all wee muses and it is my sound engineers that book the bands. And the DJs here such as Amy Mac, are well known with all the young bands too.”
Today Steven and business partner Adam Coakley also own Nico’s, which they bought in 2012. However Steven spends his time at Box. Says Steven, “Box is personal to me and Adam would say the same about Nico’s. But we do cumulative purchasing and the two venues complement each other, but the customers are completely different – Nico’s has a younger crowd, but is also heavily music orientated and really Dj focussed.
“Sauchiehall Street is a good location and there are a lot of good operators in the vicinity. From Nice N Sleazy to The Garage and everything in between. King Tut’s is around the corner and you have places like Chinaski’s nearby too. It is a vibrant wee circuit. And we take advantage of that and keep trying to push the envelope.
“So far it is working. We also don’t mind taking risks. We are always jumping in bed with new drink suppliers. But the brand the 18-24-year-olds are loving at the moment is Four Loko– and the brand associates itself with music. We also sell our own cocktails – 25 flavours in 500ml bottles. Before the pandemic, we sold them in fishbowls and the girls loved them and would share them.
“During the pandemic, I applied for and got, a takeaway licence, so we put the cocktails into bottles and the first week we sold 40. I did all the delivery, then we sold 100 and 200, and now we are selling 4,500 a month in here. They have tamper-proof seals on them and with the issues around spiking, it makes our customers feel safer. They have been amazing for us. “Customers are more discerning now. They know what they want and if you want repeat custom, and customers coming more than once a month, you have to give them value for money. They don’t mind paying for premium products but they can’t be too expensive. We just couldn’t charge £9/10 for a gin and tonic. We are trying to work harder for longer – but keep prices down and it is working for us. That’s why on a Monday night we can have 160 people in here because we also offer great entertainment and have great staff.
It’s not just their customers that like to pop in for a drink, musicians too gravitate towards Box and over the years it has seen its fair share of famous faces. I asked Steven who have left him starstruck. “Back in 2008 I was a bit star-struck when Pete Doherty came in – he was massive at the time and I was a blubbering wreck when I tried to talk to him because I was a huge fan of The Libertines.
“Franz Ferdinand once gatecrashed our Xmas night party. We had shut the bar for the night but they appeared looking for a drink – it was a bit surreal. The likes of Paulo Nutini and Biffy Clyro also have frequented the bar as have the Kings of Leon and The Killers to name but a few.”
So what of the immediate future – Steven would love to open another venue but he says, “Right now throwing ourselves into Box because of the pandemic. If we were to expand we would need to create a bigger infrastructure because I am really hands-on here. I am Mr Box and I don’t think I am at the stage yet where I step away. But one day I would love to open a Box in the USA. It would need to be in a place with lots of loads of musicians and an abundance of talented creative people. Just like Glasgow.”
He concludes, “We have just had our best Halloween ever, it seems like people, post-pandemic, just want to go out and enjoy their time with friends. Me too, I am not turning down any invitations. I am taking advantage of every opportunity and I am encouraging my team to do the same. They need to go out and live their best life. I am doing that… I just love Mondays. I always wake up buzzing, ready for the week ahead.”
As Bob Dylan once said, “A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” That is certainly Steven Mccolm.