Music / Access Creative College
Famous Bristol venue to become state-of-the-art education space
A new campus costing £4.5m is being built on the former site of Bierkeller, the legendary music venue which closed in 2018.
The new Access Creative College (ACC) campus will give the ex-venue a new lease of life, with sound facilities and classrooms.
ACC, which runs courses including esports management, creative computing and games technology, was previously located in Hengrove for more than 18 years before moving to All Saints Street in the city centre.
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Redevelopment of the Bierkeller, which is located just a stone’s throw from what is currently ACC’s main city campus, will double the space the college has in the city centre.
The venue closed suddenly in February 2018 and, over the years, welcomed some of the biggest names in music to its stage, including Nirvana, The Stone Roses and Arctic Monkeys.
ACC runs a large range of creative courses. Photo: ACC
“Bristol has a rich heritage of creativity and it is an exciting place to be teaching the next generation of digital and arts professionals,” says Mark Smithers, ACC’s Bristol centre manager.
“As we break through into the former Bierkeller site next door, it will soon be home to some of UK’s leading creatives of tomorrow as we bring it back to life as an education and state-of-the-art events space.”
The redevelopment of the venue will see an events space and stage, music studio and production pods, classrooms, breakout spaces and student collaboration areas fitted.
Following completion, the artist development, music technology and production and vocal artist courses, which were previously run from the south Bristol site, will be moved into the new campus in the city centre.
At more than 13,000 square feet, the development of the venue will more than double the floor space of ACC’s Bristol campus. Photo: ACC
“As an organisation we have been in Bristol for the best part of two decades now,” Smithers adds.
“The opening of the first phase of our city centre campus meant we could expand our offering to students, providing a broader range of courses with cutting edge facilities for the very best learning experience. We couldn’t be happier to now take that to the next stage with this new development.”
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more: Famous Bristol music venue to close
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