News - Wed 12 Feb 2020

The Met’s Annual Report 2018-19

The Met is happy to have shared our 2018/2019 Annual Report with our friends, supporters and sponsors. Putting together the report is a great opportunity for us to stop and reflect. We’re delighted with so much of the progress we’ve made as an organisation since 2018. We’re developing our workshop offer, presenting a record number of events and welcoming a huge 50,000 people to our venue and festivals. We’ve watched our audience grow and our organisation become more embedded in our community. 

In 2018 we once again hosted our Head for the Hills festival, with a line-up including upcoming artists like Stealing Sheep, Gengahr, LIINES and Emily Capell, as well as a headline slot from Slow Readers Club; a band whose breakthrough 3rd album Build A Tower was recorded at The Met’s Edwin Street Studio earlier in the year.  

We’re committed to talent development and have been excited to see the progress and success of many of the bands who have played both at the festival and the venue over the years. 

November 2018 saw the return of the much loved Bury Beer Festival after a two year hiatus. Together we discovered new beers, supported Bury’s craft breweries and consoled each other through our hangovers, as well as laying a solid foundation for our Bury Beer Festival in 2019. The Festival is growing year on year: it’s a staple of our programme which attracts new sponsors and attendees from Greater Manchester and beyond.  

Independent Venue Week 2019 was a real highlight for us; our busiest week of the year with 1350 visitors come to support new and emerging artists. As an organisation that exists to promote emerging talent this felt like a big accomplishment, and we were proud to watch our building fill with the music of artists like Richard Hawley (with Met favourite Martin Simpson making a surprise appearance as a sideman, and support by Liam Frost), The Dantevilles and The Delines.   

Throughout the year we saw sold-out shows upstairs from Ralph McTell & Wizz Jones, The Lancashire Hotpots, Ruby Turner, Andy Fairweather Low, IQ, Red Sky Coven and Ga Ga, plus sold-out Box shows from upcoming talent including Elles Bailey and Coco & The Butterfields, and sold out comedy from Sindhu Vee and Justin Moorhouse. Our First Thursday Comedy Club was a regular sell-out, and we were delighted to have a sold out performance from Tony Walsh in December, as well as a hugely successful Christmas show in our second collaboration with LIttle Blue Monster.  

We’re happy to share this Annual Report with anyone interested in the ongoing success and future of The Met and the arts in Bury. We can see already how work in 2018/19 is influencing further improvements and success in 2020 and beyond. There’ll be more reporting to share soon.  

Read the full report online by clicking on the preview below, or download a copy here: The Met Annual Report 2018-19