Tom Jones backs 25-year Live Nation lease for Tropicana
tom jones is not the headline here, but the Tropicana is: North Somerset councillors voted to offer Live Nation a 25-year lease for the Weston-super-Mare site on Tuesday. The plan would turn the long-derelict landmark into a year-round event space with capacity for up to 10,000 people.
Mike Bell, the council leader, said from the Tropicana on Wednesday: "We have definitely been stuck in a little bit of a cycle of decline, and you see it in our high street, where businesses struggle." He added: "What we needed is some catalytic investment that was going to increase numbers. Build it and people will come. That, in turn, will help to support the economy and encourage growth."
Live Nation at Weston-super-Mare
Live Nation is the global entertainment company behind about 20 UK music festivals, including Reading, Leeds, Isle of Wight and Download, and it also owns the O2 Academy venues and the Ticketmaster brand. Eddie Kemsley, a senior vice-president at the company, pointed to Dreamland in Margate as the model: "We developed a live music programme at Dreamland in Margate which really put it back on the map".
Kemsley said: "Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen more hotels and restaurants open, we’ve seen a real night-time economy. I feel that’s a business we can look to and ask: how can we use some of that here?" That is the commercial pitch behind the lease: use a major events operator to pull footfall into a town that council figures say needs it.
From 1937 to Dismaland
The Tropicana opened as an art deco lido in 1937 and closed in 2000, then sat as a hollowed-out shell for 15 years before Banksy transformed the derelict site into Dismaland in 2015. Dismaland reportedly gave the local economy a £20m boost, which explains why the council is again treating the site as more than a local building project.
Weston-super-Mare has five areas that rank among the most deprived 5% in England, while the council is also pushing upgrades to the nearly 100-year-old Marine Lake and the Grade II* listed Birnbeck Pier. The Tropicana decision is part of a wider attempt to turn a familiar seafront into a working economy, not just a postcard.
Rose Swann at the promenade
Rose Swann, 71, put the local case in plain language at the promenade: "We really need something like this in this town, most defi". Her cut-off quote still captures the pressure on the project: residents want activity, but they also want to see whether a global operator can turn a dormant site into a year-round draw.
The lease vote gives Live Nation the opening it needs, and it gives Weston-super-Mare a test that is bigger than one venue. If the company can translate a 25-year lease into regular visits, the benefit should show up first in the businesses already straining on the high street.
