I went to a gig at the Leadmill last week and wasn't very impressed by the prices and attitude of the staff. It now feels like a really 'cold' venue and the seating (eating?) areas look like something straight out of McDonalds.

The most shocking thing was being asked for 35p to top-up the coke in a barcadi and coke! The original amount of coke was about the same as the shot itself - i.e. 25/35ml of coke! I've never been a place that a) gives you so little coke in the first place and b) so rudely asks you to pay 35p for an extra 'shot'!

Another previously great venue being milked by greedy owners?

Hear hear! I went along and ordered a double bacardi and coke in a pint pot, filled to the top. The first price I was charged was £3 (reasonable I thought - my sort of prices), second time I went that evening it was £4.50. (Ouch), on the third time they wanted £6. I argued the toss and the barman told me haughtily that he'd worked there for three months and that six pounds was the right price. I informed him that I have years experience of bar work and landlady work and that the price should not double as the evening progresses. He went to get his supervisor who took AGES to come along, I got bored waiting and walked off. I watched the band finish and then left - no desire to return.

A good venue for live music, but expensive on the bar and too few bar staff on so you end up queuing for 20 mins to get served each time.

Sorry to hear about your bad experiences...I think the Leadmill has degenerated massively over the last 2-3 years...People seem to make a big deal out of the Leadmill like its a really special club but truth is its a cheesy music playing dive living on past reputation..I know for a fact that I am not alone in these thoughts..personally I will do my best to avoid ever going there..Shame though cause they used to put on some great nights...Planet Earth on Wednesday night was tops. Go in now to listen to Top 40 music..not good

Generally I find the Leadmill can be relied on for a good fun night with no trouble and very reasonable bar prices. Yes, it's not the smartest of places and the bars aren't exactly overstaffed but it's OK.

Kingdom is much worse. Long queues to get in because they are so slow on the admission desk, then even longer queues at the cloakroom, you get in and the bars are about 6 deep with only 2 people tops serving (plus some manager type with an ear piece in running round behind the bar looking important but doing sod all) the when you finally get a drink the price is a real rip off. And the toilets are always disgusting.

Gatecrasher1 is just dire, no atmosphere, rubbish music, and as for the bar - beer in cans, and vodka and orange is made with cordial rather than orange juice, which tastes vile (and served in plastic glasses).

Banus - haven't been so cannot comment

And thats it - Sheffield's main clubs, apart from a few small specialist venues that many would probably be scared to go to.

I don't bother clubbing anymore, just stick to late bars.

Totally mate. Late bars, then home.
Clubs suck.

Originally posted by Andy C
Generally I find the Leadmill ... very reasonable bar prices.
That's where I have to disagree! The prices are crazy. Apart from the aforementioned 35p for an extra 'shot' of coke, the beer was around £2.40 which is as expensive as any other place in Sheffield - and therefore can't be classified as cheap!

Guess you need to look where the offers are, they do have some bargains.

When I said reasonable bar prices I was generally meaning by nightclub standards, for example in Kingdom you are talking nearly £4 for alcopops and nearly £3 for a pint of low quality lager like Fosters.

Leadmills prices are generally similar to those charged in the livelier city centre bars.

We were there for a gig. If you go to some special night, then sure you can pick up cheap drinks. Put their standard prices are as high (if not higher for that damn Barcadi and coke!) than any other place in Sheffield. My post was regarding the Leadmill as a venue for 'gigs' and not really as a nightclub.

PS. I think that £2.40 was for a very weak tasting Fosters, or something similar. It wasn't a premium beer anyway.

£2.40 a pint?! WTF?!

Glad I stick to the local pubs...

ive always found the leadmills prices to be reasonable when comparing clubs...

u cant compare clubs to pubs/bars thou.

I had a couple of decent nights in the Leadmill last year but it was only a select couple. I have to be in the right mood to go clubbing there otherwise I just get agitated by drunk fools bumping into me or standing on my feet and not apologising, and I just want to go home. I guess the prices are ok but I only drink that 'Red' stuff generally cos it's cheap and I don't drink bitter or lager.

I'm generally one of those late bar people where I can relax and talk to people without giving myself brain damage from shouting too loud.

That doesn't make much sense, I usually pay a quid max for a vodka + mixer, some nights as low as 60p. I have to pay more on the door though as I ain't a job dodger.

I've never been too impressed with the place. Alot of people I know hold it in high esteem but I've just never understood why. The place is grotty IMO, I don't like my feet sticking to floors, also when was the last time the place had a refurb and some new decor? Or is one of its main attractions? :D

I did enjoy the Leadmill at one time, Thursday nights were my favourite with (back when I went) 60's R&B,soul in one room and a good mixture of chart and rap/hip-hop in the other.
Now both rooms focus more on chart through out the past 10 years, the good thing going still for thursday nihgt is cheap drinks and it hardly gets busy.

Geoff, you will just have to stop drinking Bacardi and coke there or sneak a hip flask into a gig, it's cheaper and can be done:rolleyes:

Originally posted by fnkysknky
That doesn't make much sense, I usually pay a quid max for a vodka + mixer, some nights as low as 60p. I have to pay more on the door though as I ain't a job dodger.
In case I haven't made it clear already - I'm talking about gig nights and NOT club nights...!

As for the barcardi and coke, I think you'll find I was drinking that over priced Fosters ;)

I realised you were talking about the gigs, nothing wrong with a bacardi and coke (it's good enough for vinnie jones), do you attend club nights often? I just wanted to say it's not all bad, but I haven't been to a gig for years there.

The "gig night not club night" part wasn't in reply to you, it was a reply to the post that I quoted ;) I'm sure the Leadmill is fine, it was just their pricing policy and attitude on a quiet gig night that stank.

Originally posted by Geoff
In case I haven't made it clear already - I'm talking about gig nights and NOT club nights...!

As for the barcardi and coke, I think you'll find I was drinking that over priced Fosters ;)

Yeah I know but the price difference seemed ridiculous, especially when after a gig it stays open for the club anyway :confused:

Originally posted by fnkysknky
Yeah I know but the price difference seemed ridiculous, especially when after a gig it stays open for the club anyway :confused:
Yep... it's very odd indeed. I have no idea why they decide to rip-off the few people that pay £10-15 to watch a gig.

By law every pub has to have a price list at the end of the bar. I looked for it at the leadmill and it was there, but situated in a position where it was out of general sight of customers - you'd have to lean well across the bar and turn your head round at an angle to read it.

This could be why there was a price lottery going on over the cost of my bacardi and coke (see earlier entry on this thread). I imagine there was a price for the bacardi but the coke costs were bizarrely different each time. :loopy:

let's face it, leadmill is the only place in south yorkshire where you can see decent bands

if you wan't the best bands, you've got to pay for it

tickets are usually around the £10 mark, which isn't bad, and £2.40 a pint although not cheap, is hardly extortionate

like someone said, you're looking at £4 for a bottle of tart-fuel in the kingdom, and that's only on a club night

you go to the leadmill on a monday, and a bottle of lager costs 75p, wednesday and it's 50p for a vodka shot - of course it's going to be more expensive on a saturday night, with a gig on

they have to make money - it's a business

i prefer it like that - pay for the good bands, it's how they make up for the loss of profit on cheap nights

also, to say they only play cheesy music is completely false. they have three rooms and play almost every taste in music they could

there are different nights with different themes, they play indie, pop, r&b, they have metally-punky-grungy bands on and they even play 60's soul or funk and stuff like that in the smaller rooms

don't drink the vodka, taste like nail varnish remover!

Very nicely said Rarstar....

here here !!!

Yeah the thing is with the Leadmill is it never pretends to be anything different, it's a dark, dirty club and they're proud of it. Always good for a laugh once in a while.

well, my girlfriend is living in cambridge for the year and having spent quite a bit of time down there, all i can say is thank god i don't have to pay £6 for a smirnoff ice and listen to a mixture of abba, generic seventies disco drivel and modern dancepoptrancehop toss every weekend

thank god for the leadmill and casbah!

ps, the lack of general capitalisation is a tempory situation

i'll have the shift and fullstop keys welded back onto my keyboard by 15:29 hours on monday

I used to love the leadmill in my student days. I was a regular at some of th cheap mid-week student nights and regularly went to weekend nights like rise, joyrider and step on. Also saw plenty of quality bands there. It was a top place, nice and chilled out, top vibes inside and great music.

The weekend nights there are now more cheesy top 40 stuff and it doesn't have the same vibe and people as times gone by.

Oh well, another once great Sheffield venue bites the dust...

They stopped playing the cheesy stuff on saturdays about a year or more ago.

At the risk of sounding like an old soap dodger ;), I've been to the Leadmill for about 20 years and its currently the worst its ever been imo.

I went to one single gig there in 2003, they seem to have lost their pulling power to book decent bands. I think Sheffield always gets overlooked due to Leeds and Manchester though, which is not the Leadmill's fault.

As for club nights...lol no thanks! The last times I've been down there its degenerated into a total meat market full of the checked shirt brigade.

Besides the dance scene, the only club I bother with now is the Corporation which is good for alt/rock acts.

Xtro...

Do you reckon that's generally due to the overall crapness of music today though?

I mean if the best bands going around at the moment are supposed to be the Strokes and Jet, then what else can be expected?

I agree unfortunately mate.

All the recent stuff I'm listening to is US based bands and they seem to prefer Rock City in Nottingham or Manchester Academy...failing that Leeds Cockpit.

The band I saw at the Leadmill last year were Killing Joke who were excellent as always but they've been going 25 years! Not much new Brit stuff getting me excited to be honest. I managed to see Franz Ferdinand as part of the NME tour at the Uni and they were "ok".

Mostly I'm forced to travel for gigs, a shame.

I think that the best that can be said for the Leadmill is that the place is an average nightclub and a below average venue for a gig. But as people have already pointed out, it's one of the few places you can see a band in South Yorkshire for less than £20.00.

In my experience the place has a good atmosphere for a band of middling status, but the capacity just isn't there when it comes to the groups with a larger following. Sardines in a crowded Leadmill is not fun.

A year or so back I went to catch a gig by Rival Schools and was treated to the sight of the roof caving in from the rain...when you consider the fact that the place is usually packed each weekend and pulls in a healthy crowd for gigs, is fixing the roof really that much to ask?

I do think that, for the amount of money they must rake in every night, club owners seem to put little back in to the place. There are few clubs that are actually nice places to be.

Seems to me that every year the crowds get bigger and the venue is never increased in capacity. I know it occupies a thin sliver of land, but there must be some way to maximise the space they have available?

Originally posted by jackthedog
I do think that, for the amount of money they must rake in every night, club owners seem to put little back in to the place. There are few clubs that are actually nice places to be.

You ask a lot of people though and they're quite happy to go out to a dark, dirty club. Take the Arches, it's disgusting, it's old but great. Take Kingdom, it's been done up, it's modern but it's truly awful :D

Might there be a difference between character and grot?

ive been to the lead mill a few times its ok but you are better off gettin ****** before you go in cause ya can never get to the bar but other than tht i reckon its a top club.