The Hive

The community owned music venue in Cheshire that was formerly the iconic de bees music bar. Winsford is nestled in between Liverpool and Manchester and absorbed their musical cultures when many hundreds of families from the cities moved into town as part of the 1960’s overspill. For a small town Winsford has an envious music scene which was germinated and grew in de bees over 20 odd years. As a valuable grass roots music venue de bees staged the likes of Tom Walker, The Luka State, Deja Vega, Catfish and the Bottlemen in their formative years, to name but a few! The venue hosted thousands of gigs and concerts over the years including bands like the Levellers, Cage The Elephant and China Crisis and comedians such as Alan Carr, John Bishop and Jason Manford. In 2019 the property owners Enterprise Inns decided to offload the building for redevelopment, refusing to issue a new lease with de bees long term operators. The people of Winsford (a small town with a big heart) decided to get together and crowdfund to make sure that this Iconic venue continued to be at the heart of the local music scene and community life generally forever. The venue was saved!! One of only a few music venues ever to be bought into community ownership in the UK. Profits will be able to fund music and arts projects for years to come ensuring the local scene grows from strength to strength and the bands keep coming through.