The Sanctuary Music Arena was a 22,000 sq ft, 3,500 capacity music venue in Denbigh North, Milton Keynes in the UK. Noted for its connection to the Rave scene, it opened its doors in December 1991 and was billed as the first and only designer dance venue in the country.
Originally intended for industrial use, the 22,000 sq ft (2,000 m2) unit was built in 1990 but failed to find a tenant due to the early nineties' recession. It was first used as a music venue by ESP promotions to host their inaugural Dreamscape rave in December 1991, after ESP's owner (the late Murray Beetson) reached an agreement with the landlord for short-term event hire. As it was never designed for this purpose, there were a number of licensing conditions to be met before the go ahead was given by the local authorities, one of which was the installation of additional fire exits - at ESP's expense - to cope with the planned 4,000 capacity. At this point the venue was without a name and was known simply by its location (Denbigh Leisure Park) both locally and on the event flyer; however, due to the success of this and the follow up parties ESP held there in early to mid 1992 (Dreamscape 2, 3, 4 & Big Bad Head), plans were put into place to turn the site into a dedicated music venue with the full blessing of the local authorities. After closing in the autumn of 1992 for the redevelopment work to take place, the venue reopened in December as 'The Sanctuary Music Arena' and included dedicated toilet and bar facilities with an ancient Rome theme running throughout, as well as adding a second smaller dance arena upstairs. Due to the redesign and additional features, the licensed capacity of the venue was reduced to 3,500 people.
The venue was pivotal in the development of numerous underground electronic dance music genres, sub-genres and styles. Owned by Tony Rosenberg, The Sanctuary played host to the UK's biggest dance music promoters of the time, including Dreamscape, Helter Skelter Rave, Jungle Fever, Slammin Vinyl, Gatecrasher, Hardcore Heaven, Cream, Slinky, Uproar, Sidewinder and Godskitchen. The venue attracted a national audience to its 12-hour all night events. As well as Dance Music events, several high-profile live music acts appeared at The Sanctuary, including The Cult, The Prodigy, Ocean Colour Scene, Brand New Heavies, Gary Numan, and Paul Weller.
Starting with ESP's New Year's Eve 1994 Dreamscape event, promoters would occasionally use the adjacent "Rollers UK" roller skating rink as an extra dance arena in conjunction with The Sanctuary. Later still (early 2000s), event promoters Slammin' Vinyl also made use of the "Fastrack" go-karting arena (the third and final unit on the site) creating a 9,000 capacity multi-arena dance venue, one of the largest of its kind in the country.
The Sanctuary's owner also partnered two of the venue's main promoters (ESP and Helter Skelter) for two very successful large scale outdoor raves: ESP's Dreamscape 20, a 20,000 capacity rave held in September 1995 at Brafield Aerodrome in Northamptonshire; followed in August 1997 by Helter Skelter's Energy '97 rave, another 20,000 capacity event, this time held near the Northamptonshire Village of Turweston.
The close association of Rave with drug culture resulted in the public entertainment licence of The Sanctuary being challenged several times. Generally the local council and in particular Milton Keynes Licensing were supportive as were Thames Valley Police, with the owner working alongside the authorities introducing harm minimisation for "ravers" (including drinking water fountains and on-site paramedic teams with private ambulances) but with parallel strong policing trying to prevent the sale of illegal substances within the venue.
Through a police challenge to The Sanctuary licence in 1997, the owner sought the assistance of the then MP for Milton Keynes South Dr. Phyllis Starkey, bringing to the attention of the MP the issues of licensing and in particular, the need for regulated door and event security ("bouncers"). This subsequently led to Dr. Starkey's Private Members Bill to Parliament in 1998 which although unsuccessful, eventually persuaded the Government to introduce the Private Security Industry Act 2001 leading to the formation of the Security Industry Authority in 2003.
Due to plans to redevelop the area, the Sanctuary finally closed its doors on 10 July 2004 with rave promoter Slammin Vinyl hosting the final event.. Such was the interest and publicity surrounding the night, a big top arena was added alongside the Sanctuary, Rollers and Fastrack venues to accommodate as many people as possible. Even though this took the capacity up to 12,000, it was reported that the event could easily have sold double the number of tickets available, such was the demand. The Sanctuary (and surrounding buildings] were subsequently demolished to make way for a new IKEA store as part of a development that also included the stadium mk football stadium and an Asda hypermarket.
Video Sanctuary Music Arena
See also
- List of electronic dance music venues
Maps Sanctuary Music Arena
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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