It comes nearly exactly 3 years to the day that Hangar another important Dublin venue closed its doors.

Another in a long line of venues in Dublin has announced its closure. Jam Park revealed on their website today that they have been unable to come to an agreement regarding their lease on their venue in Swords and so have been forced to close.

Jam Park has hosted some of the biggest acts in the world from Skepta to Fjaak and Floating points and in a city where nightlife is teetering close to the edge it’s a massive loss.

It follows the closure of Jigsaw in recent months and prior to the pandemic Hangar was forced to close its door and The Bernard Shaw had to relocate.

Bodytonic do want to relocate the venue so fingers crossed it comes back stronger than ever.

Read their statement from their website below:

Howdy folks,

Unfortunately we’ve got some bad news: we are closing our site at Airside in Swords for good. We’ve tried our best to come to an agreement regarding our lease since the Covid pandemic forced us to close, but no dice. So we are now left with no choice but to close in Airside and look for somewhere else. 

From the very start of Jam Park we had a saying: ‘play the long game’. Like any project we’ve done, we knew it would take us at least 2-3 years to make this set of notions work, but the truth is we barely got out of our own half!

When we opened in summer 2019, games, live music shows, club nights, Eatyard food vendors, markets, talks, film screenings, bingo, big screen & sound sports, fitness classes, and even a rooftop farm were all part of the Jam Park gameplan.  However we only had a chance to be open for 9 months before Covid hit. It’s ironic that during the time of closure is when we began to find our feet with the place. Between building a great team, streaming weekly online games events, delivering overflowing pints of dodgy Guinness, resetting our outside areas with a summer festival feel, growing fruit & veg on the rooftop, not to mention hundreds of incoming table bookings and events, we had developed a great sense of optimism about the future. It’s amazing how fit you can get when you’ve 15 months of pre-season training!

All of that is now gone. To be told this news one week before we reopen is a bitter pill to swallow, maybe if we’d have been told 6-12 months ago it would have been easier to accept. But the game is the game. Now we need to find somewhere else to play. 

To everyone who has booked in with us this summer, we are very sorry to say we will have to cancel. We will be sending out cancellation notices shortly, but nonetheless thank you for having booked with us, maybe we’ll see you somewhere else in the future.

To all of the amazing team we have working in Jam Park, we thank you so much for your tireless work, energy and belief in the project. We’ll be aiming to source alternative employment for you all.

A huge thanks go to the whole District 8 crew, you are absolute legends and Dublin needs you. No doubt you’ll press on and continue the amazing clubbing machine you have created.

To everyone who had pencilled dates for live music shows, record fairs, markets, bingo & games events, exhibitions, talks etc, unfortunately consider all dates null and void at Jam Park.

We all had big plans for here, loads of ideas hatched over last 12 months, ready to go, all in vain. Hopefully some iteration of Jam Park will pop up again somewhere else. If you know of any free spaces, get in touch !

Until then it’s….game over.

xxx
Jam Park.