Brudenell Social Club

The Brudenell Social Club is a live music venue and social club in Hyde Park, Leeds, England. While being a social enterprise, it retains the "community atmosphere of its origins as a working men's club". The club is split into three areas—a 400 capacity concert room, a bar area and games room section (which occasionally holds gigs) and a second 400 capacity concert area, known as the Community Room, which opened in 2017. The club was originally formed in 1913 by local businessmen, who built a wooden clubhouse at 33 Queen's Road which opened on 2 December of the same year. After falling into disrepair, this wooden structure was replaced by the present brick building at the cost of £160,000 in 1978, with the club officially reopening on 7 December. The Clark family took on the club's license in 1992 and began to put on gigs after a shift in the makeup of Hyde Park's population caused by more students moving into the area. Initial shows were focused around the local DIY music scene. From 2004 to 2005, noise complaints forced the club to briefly abandon gigs. After a period of fundraising, soundproof firedoors were purchased and installed, while a new public address system was added to the concert room as a result of a National Lottery grant. A few years later, in 2007, the Brudenell moved from being a member's club to being a "publicly open, licensed place that runs as a social enterprise and reinvests its money". The club has played host to "secret gigs" by the likes of Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand, hosted The Cribs as they played three-consecutive nights, billed as "Cribsmas", in December 2007 and celebrated its 100th anniversary in December 2013, with shows by The Wedding Present, The Fall and ¡Forward, Russia! among others. A "primary cog in the Leeds music scene", the Brudenell Social Club was joint winner of the best live music venue in 2014's Rock the House competition, and was shortlisted for The Fly magazine's 2014 UK Venue of the Year' award and the NME's Britain's Best Small Venue award in 2011, 2012 and 2015. In 2024 they won the 'Inspirational Venue of the Year for under 500 capacity' award at the inaugural Northern Music Awards.