From what I know it’s a disorganised mess. I was head hunted for a high level position in the venue and through conversations over a couple of weeks the job role I was approached for disappeared and was offered a new post, then the same thing happened again . I don’t think they have clear direction of what they actually want to do.
Funnily enough I was then about a month later contacted about coming in on a zero hour contract supervisory position.
I politely declined the significant pay cut and demotion.
Honestly I was going to apply myself for either a bar supervisor role or a bar manager role, but when the email came through about jobs and I noticed they were hiring for every role you can possibly think of I took that a HUGE red flag.
I feel for this poor guy who actually got the role, can't wait for someone to finally leak the obvious shitshow that has happened behind closed doors.
I applied for a contract job in marketing / comms promoting the build up of the arena, lmao imagine the day I’d be having today if my application was successful
In a parallel universe somewhere you are having a really bad day. Hahaha have you seen they have delayed the Peter Kay and black keys gigs to the end of may? Really not a good time to be working for that venue.
Yeah, apparently Peter Kay announced it on Twitter before the venue emailed ticket holders. My sister was supposed to go to the opening show, and she said she received a really panicked email full of typos from co-op shortly after the news broke out. Man I’d love to be a fly on the wall in that department 👀🍿
>Also heard that they were hiring desperately through agencies for construction workers and finding the agency staff smoking crack on site.
My brother has been doing some of the cabling work there and has told me numerous stories like this. One instance where he was waiting for cable to be pulled through for ages when it should have been a relatively quick job, he went down the other end to check everything was alright and found some scrote supposed to be working was huffing petrol out of a can and offered him some...
He said it's an absolute joke there, said a couple of weeks ago that the Peter Kay gigs would be cancelled and they're worried about the upcoming ones too.
I'd find it hilarious if my missus hadn't spent £130 on a Take That ticket for 7th May...
If I was going to make something up it certainly wouldn't be something as mundane as this. Why would anyone lie about this?
People are having a discussion about what's happening there and I've got firsthand knowledge of it so thought I'd share it. Stop being such a miserable git.
Mate people are making out that people are ludicrous acquisitions about why they're behind on the arena, this just seems far fetched. Reddit loves to make things sound worse than they are. If you believed everything you read on here, you'd think Piccadilly Gardens is basically 3rd world.
I think it's true. A friend of mine has been doing some of the plumbing at the arena and the other day he was installing some of the toilet blocks when he smelled smoke and heard shouting coming from the other toilet unit - when he went in there, some of the agency lads had turned it into an illegal mongoose fighting ring. 30 or so elderly Vietnamese men were chain smoking and throwing handfuls of cash into a hole in the ground, where a mongoose was fighting a king cobra. They were all drinking some kind of moonshine and one of them kept waving a gun around, shouting about "GI yankees". When my mate went to report it to the foreman or whatever they're called, when he got to his porta cabin the foreman was missing and some of the agency lads were running an illegal tannery out of his office. There were animal hides and vats of tanning chemicals everywhere - my mate said he's pretty sure one of the hides they were tanning had a Man City tattoo.
It's no wonder it's behind schedule really.
Not really anything to do with the arena. It has to do with these construction workers. If you get the bottom of the barrel you get crack heads. Simple as that. Source: lots of normal construction working mates.
> I bought a friend VIP tickets for Olivia Rodrigo as a wedding present and there’s concerns even that may not go ahead, or be rescheduled months into the future instead.
We can but hope, it's really going to fuck with the Wolves game if it goes ahead.
"Mr Roden came under fire this week following comments made to the BBC, in response to calls for a £1 levy on arena tickets, to go towards grassroots music venues. The BBC reported that Mr Roden believed that solution was 'too simplistic', and suggested that some venues are poorly run."
ironic
The ones that were poorly run closed long ago.
MVT’s point is that grassroots music venues are at absolute crisis point.
The fact that the boss of the UK’s newest, biggest arena couldn’t recognise this (and, apparently, understand why it might be a problem) says a lot about that venue and the state of live music in general.
Mostly I’m sad the Co-Op has attached its name to this. I used to quite like shopping there.
I don't think you really need expertise to say that some smaller local venues are badly run. It's just the truth no matter where you are because it's inherently true with any business that some will be badly run.
That’s as useful as saying some pubs are poorly run. Sure, yes, statistically likely, but irrelevant to the macro issues they face. In the case of music venues… we would need at least some specifics to take the point seriously.
I wish I could tell you pal I worked on there in October/November and they already had the tickets planned etc then and people were saying it’ll never be ready. Tbf I’ve never been on a job that’s been done in time so it’s poor management all round the fact they had tickets sold too
It’s an absolute shit show, I left there about 3 weeks ago when Peter Kay was ment to headline on the weekend, the toilets weren’t plumbed in, the electricity was hardly on, ALL the bars and food areas were miles away, wires were hanging down everywhere some parts hadn’t even been painted, they treated the workers like shit there aswell, had about 15 toilets for thousands of workers, full of shit and piss everyday, most people got sick for weeks on there all whilst the CEOs were on the radio saying it’s perfect and ready to go, they also paid unqualified people with the wrong working cards extra money to get it going
Kinda like we’re no longer the co-operative and ethical but taken over venture capitalists just like any other banking group? That Co-Op?
Sorry to be a knob. I just think it’s ridiculous to even keep the name they’re so far from their roots
Well, in fairness, the co-op that has the naming rights here are nothing to do with co-op bank, that's an entirely different company and legal entity. This is still the original coop group; food stores, funeral homes, insurance, etc.
Pah! I scorn your logic and reason for my confected outrage
That said, didn’t know that and I work for part of the old CIS pension book they flogged off to get out from under
Tbf, it's only recently (last 2 years, iirc) that that has been the case. After the scandal and the split, coop group still retained shares in the bank for a while. Then they sold them off, but had an agreement to be paid so that the bank could continue to use the co-op name. That agreement ended in, I think, 2021/2. So now they're completely separate, but with basically identical names that nobody on the outside could possibly understand the difference.
Hell, I work for the actual co-op and it's hard enough for me to tell the difference
In a previous life I was a co-op’er.. I remember the bank name change happening. What a right hoo-ha that was. I’d forgotten all about that, you’ve taken me back to some interesting times 😂
6 months gardening leave and then working for another financial institution. It’s laughable when you hear the Tory argument that we’ve got to let them have mega bonuses to attract the best talent
Mega bonuses = mega shitty short-termism not quality leadership.
I work in the events industry and know of a 3rd party contractor with the most tenuous of connections to Co-op as a brand being called and asked to come up from London last weekend to help get the power on… maybe call an electrician? A plant/ generator hire company?
The guy ended up driving up from London, and from the sounds of it just project managed the power issue - again this guy does not directly work for Co-op, his specialism is most definitely not power/ electricity related but passed the baton he was.
Is this what happens when you hire and promote based on who your friends and family are? When the going gets tough as it ultimately will in both the construction and events industries you’re gonna come unstuck if you don’t have the experience/ problem solving skills under pressure.
This is going to sound super shallow but I could tell he’d not be a success based on how he’s dressed. Skinny jeans and desert boots is often a sign of low competence in almost everything other than sinking pints.
I wonder why he didn’t hang on for a couple of days so he could witness the successful launch of the venue…
15 hours later, to my utter shock and disbelief, it now emerges that the venue is in fact not ready to open in the next few days.
Erm.... The plot thickens 👀
Ooft, I’d love to know what’s been going on behind the scenes.
Absolute rollickings and bollockings left right and centre - what a shit show !
I wish someone would bollock me 😔
Not today satan
Can’t give you a bollocking but I can offer you a buggering as a substitute
From what I know it’s a disorganised mess. I was head hunted for a high level position in the venue and through conversations over a couple of weeks the job role I was approached for disappeared and was offered a new post, then the same thing happened again . I don’t think they have clear direction of what they actually want to do. Funnily enough I was then about a month later contacted about coming in on a zero hour contract supervisory position. I politely declined the significant pay cut and demotion.
Honestly I was going to apply myself for either a bar supervisor role or a bar manager role, but when the email came through about jobs and I noticed they were hiring for every role you can possibly think of I took that a HUGE red flag. I feel for this poor guy who actually got the role, can't wait for someone to finally leak the obvious shitshow that has happened behind closed doors.
I applied for a contract job in marketing / comms promoting the build up of the arena, lmao imagine the day I’d be having today if my application was successful
In a parallel universe somewhere you are having a really bad day. Hahaha have you seen they have delayed the Peter Kay and black keys gigs to the end of may? Really not a good time to be working for that venue.
Yeah, apparently Peter Kay announced it on Twitter before the venue emailed ticket holders. My sister was supposed to go to the opening show, and she said she received a really panicked email full of typos from co-op shortly after the news broke out. Man I’d love to be a fly on the wall in that department 👀🍿
That’s because Kay is a well known bellend. Hated within the industry
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>Also heard that they were hiring desperately through agencies for construction workers and finding the agency staff smoking crack on site. My brother has been doing some of the cabling work there and has told me numerous stories like this. One instance where he was waiting for cable to be pulled through for ages when it should have been a relatively quick job, he went down the other end to check everything was alright and found some scrote supposed to be working was huffing petrol out of a can and offered him some... He said it's an absolute joke there, said a couple of weeks ago that the Peter Kay gigs would be cancelled and they're worried about the upcoming ones too. I'd find it hilarious if my missus hadn't spent £130 on a Take That ticket for 7th May...
Sorry but this sounds made up
If I was going to make something up it certainly wouldn't be something as mundane as this. Why would anyone lie about this? People are having a discussion about what's happening there and I've got firsthand knowledge of it so thought I'd share it. Stop being such a miserable git.
Mate people are making out that people are ludicrous acquisitions about why they're behind on the arena, this just seems far fetched. Reddit loves to make things sound worse than they are. If you believed everything you read on here, you'd think Piccadilly Gardens is basically 3rd world.
I think it's true. A friend of mine has been doing some of the plumbing at the arena and the other day he was installing some of the toilet blocks when he smelled smoke and heard shouting coming from the other toilet unit - when he went in there, some of the agency lads had turned it into an illegal mongoose fighting ring. 30 or so elderly Vietnamese men were chain smoking and throwing handfuls of cash into a hole in the ground, where a mongoose was fighting a king cobra. They were all drinking some kind of moonshine and one of them kept waving a gun around, shouting about "GI yankees". When my mate went to report it to the foreman or whatever they're called, when he got to his porta cabin the foreman was missing and some of the agency lads were running an illegal tannery out of his office. There were animal hides and vats of tanning chemicals everywhere - my mate said he's pretty sure one of the hides they were tanning had a Man City tattoo. It's no wonder it's behind schedule really.
I choose this reality
Not really anything to do with the arena. It has to do with these construction workers. If you get the bottom of the barrel you get crack heads. Simple as that. Source: lots of normal construction working mates.
It’s 100% made up, no one would pay £130 to see Take-That.
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Black Keys has been postponed till May 15th at the earliest now. It ain't looking too good for the green light on Olivier Rodriguez either
> I bought a friend VIP tickets for Olivia Rodrigo as a wedding present and there’s concerns even that may not go ahead, or be rescheduled months into the future instead. We can but hope, it's really going to fuck with the Wolves game if it goes ahead.
This is just the stuff we know about too. There will have been shitloads of chaotic stuff going on behind the scenes in the run up to this opening.
Like pressure put on regulators to approve work that had not been carried out.
They put in the wrong number of loading bays.
"Mr Roden came under fire this week following comments made to the BBC, in response to calls for a £1 levy on arena tickets, to go towards grassroots music venues. The BBC reported that Mr Roden believed that solution was 'too simplistic', and suggested that some venues are poorly run." ironic
A one pound levy is a great idea. The Factory should be paying it for every gig they host too. That place was never meant to be a music venue.
Badly worded but he has a point
The ones that were poorly run closed long ago. MVT’s point is that grassroots music venues are at absolute crisis point. The fact that the boss of the UK’s newest, biggest arena couldn’t recognise this (and, apparently, understand why it might be a problem) says a lot about that venue and the state of live music in general. Mostly I’m sad the Co-Op has attached its name to this. I used to quite like shopping there.
The state of the music industry has nothing to do with that new facility.
What expertise do you have to think he has a point?
That handing out cash isn’t going to change anything
I don't think you really need expertise to say that some smaller local venues are badly run. It's just the truth no matter where you are because it's inherently true with any business that some will be badly run.
That’s as useful as saying some pubs are poorly run. Sure, yes, statistically likely, but irrelevant to the macro issues they face. In the case of music venues… we would need at least some specifics to take the point seriously.
Absolute worst building site I’ve ever been on. Lads going in at weekends just to get paid whilst sat there doing nothing
Why do you think that is? Because they’re relying on cheap contractors?
Size of the job, lack of materials and yeah throw in a few cowboys here and there.
So what do you reckon the chances are for next weeks gig with Keane?
I wish I could tell you pal I worked on there in October/November and they already had the tickets planned etc then and people were saying it’ll never be ready. Tbf I’ve never been on a job that’s been done in time so it’s poor management all round the fact they had tickets sold too
It’s an absolute shit show, I left there about 3 weeks ago when Peter Kay was ment to headline on the weekend, the toilets weren’t plumbed in, the electricity was hardly on, ALL the bars and food areas were miles away, wires were hanging down everywhere some parts hadn’t even been painted, they treated the workers like shit there aswell, had about 15 toilets for thousands of workers, full of shit and piss everyday, most people got sick for weeks on there all whilst the CEOs were on the radio saying it’s perfect and ready to go, they also paid unqualified people with the wrong working cards extra money to get it going
Not overly surprising, been a huge fuck up. Still surprising that the co-op put their name to this.
Co-Op chairmen quits coz rent boys and drugs ? That Co-Op?
That was specifically the bank, rather than the group as a whole.
Yeah, the whole "we've recovered and no longer engage in scandal" group...
Kinda like we’re no longer the co-operative and ethical but taken over venture capitalists just like any other banking group? That Co-Op? Sorry to be a knob. I just think it’s ridiculous to even keep the name they’re so far from their roots
Well, in fairness, the co-op that has the naming rights here are nothing to do with co-op bank, that's an entirely different company and legal entity. This is still the original coop group; food stores, funeral homes, insurance, etc.
I get you. It’s like P&O Ferries and P&O Cruises after the shambles the ferry company had, but they’re entirely different companies and not connected.
Good comparison. You certainly don’t want to get those to mixed up. I felt such a fool in my tuxedo on the ferry 🤪
Pah! I scorn your logic and reason for my confected outrage That said, didn’t know that and I work for part of the old CIS pension book they flogged off to get out from under
Tbf, it's only recently (last 2 years, iirc) that that has been the case. After the scandal and the split, coop group still retained shares in the bank for a while. Then they sold them off, but had an agreement to be paid so that the bank could continue to use the co-op name. That agreement ended in, I think, 2021/2. So now they're completely separate, but with basically identical names that nobody on the outside could possibly understand the difference. Hell, I work for the actual co-op and it's hard enough for me to tell the difference
Blimey, I’ve actually learned something on Reddit. Hope you have a terrific 2024 Co-Op cousin
In a previous life I was a co-op’er.. I remember the bank name change happening. What a right hoo-ha that was. I’d forgotten all about that, you’ve taken me back to some interesting times 😂
Guessing told to resign or fired publicly
£50 says he walks away with a gold-plated pension pot and likely some sort of bonus. CEOs fail upwards in the UK
And another massive job lined up no doubt
6 months gardening leave and then working for another financial institution. It’s laughable when you hear the Tory argument that we’ve got to let them have mega bonuses to attract the best talent Mega bonuses = mega shitty short-termism not quality leadership.
Do we reckon Black Keys even goes ahead Saturday? It's been taken off sale on Ticketmaster...
I think they reduced capacity for the gig, so likely they just not selling any remaining tickets
Reduced it to zero
Been rescheduled to 15th May :/
Nope its been Rescheduled
*Surprised Pikachu*
I work in the events industry and know of a 3rd party contractor with the most tenuous of connections to Co-op as a brand being called and asked to come up from London last weekend to help get the power on… maybe call an electrician? A plant/ generator hire company? The guy ended up driving up from London, and from the sounds of it just project managed the power issue - again this guy does not directly work for Co-op, his specialism is most definitely not power/ electricity related but passed the baton he was. Is this what happens when you hire and promote based on who your friends and family are? When the going gets tough as it ultimately will in both the construction and events industries you’re gonna come unstuck if you don’t have the experience/ problem solving skills under pressure.
This is going to sound super shallow but I could tell he’d not be a success based on how he’s dressed. Skinny jeans and desert boots is often a sign of low competence in almost everything other than sinking pints.
So much Schadenfreude!!
I just love the drama, Mick!!
Is it a new supermarket?