Dublin club TRAMLINE shuts its doors

Popular Dublin bar and music venue TRAMLINE  announced its official closure this week, citing the pandemic and high costs of running a venue in Dublin.

"It is with great regret and sadness that we announce the closure of TRAMLINE," the D'Olier Street establishment wrote on Instagram. "The pandemic together with the costs now associated with running a business in Ireland in broad terms are the reason for this regrettable decision today."

 

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A post shared by TRAMLINE (@tramlinedublin)

The abrupt closure was a shock to many, as the venue not only had upcoming live events scheduled for July, but into August and September as well.

The announcement was met with an outpouring of disappointment from TRAMLINE's regulars, some of whom had their first night out or met their partner there.

Dublin-based pop and dance artist Jazzy, fresh off a performance at Longitude last weekend wrote, "Some great nights had in here, sad to hear this."

Previous DJs for the club also left their best wishes, including Neville Fernandez and Aaron O'Connor, who wrote "Wow, didn't see this coming. What a venue. Big loss to the industry, pleasure to get a chance to DJ here."

The venue hosted weekly events like Swerve Thursdays and Fairground Saturdays that provided a platform for artists in Dublin's expanding hip hop and DJ scene, like DJs Ebay, Ahmed,  Jesse, and Ricky T.

Tramline also hosted Re-session Mondays, where tickets were €1, and drinks were as cheap as €2. It appears this busy roster of events, and afterparties and deals was not enough to save the venue. Their farewell post cited high costs of operation and struggling business over the pandemic as the main reasons for the closure.

"We would like to thank Give Us the Night for their relentless campaigning to implement change at Government level over the last two decades, TRAMLINE added. "The failure of successive governments to reform both licensing and insurance industry price gouging practices has made a great business unavailable in today's economy."

TRAMLINE's closure marks the latest in a series of bars and nightclubs to shut its doors. Dublin's late night club scene had been thinning even before the pandemic, the onset of which only accelerated the closures. Club 92 and Hangar both abruptly closed in 2018, and Dublin underground staples Tripod and Crawdaddy closed in 2012.

Last night, electronic producer R.Kitt provided an update on the Government's slow-moving reform laws in relating to licensing and nightlife hours.

 

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A post shared by R.Kitt (@rkitt4eva)

"Sharing an update on the extended opening hours and the reform of the licensing laws," the DJ posted to his page. "Hate to be making these videos but felt this was the best way to get this info out, and in the wake of the news that tramline has closed, I thought some people might be interested to know what’s going on. But the TL/DR version is that we believe the reform is not going to happen this year.

"Feeling like we’ve had a lot of our time wasted over the last few years. it’s very frustrating," he continued. "There are obviously much bigger issues in Irish society that need to be addressed by government but it’s indicative of a larger rot when such moderate reform takes so long. Happy to answer any questions about this here in the comments or in my dms, feel free to hit me up."