North Somerset councillors on Tuesday voted to offer Live Nation a 25-year lease for the Tropicana in Weston-super-Mare, clearing the way for the abandoned seafront site to be turned into a year-round event space. The plan would give the old landmark a new life with capacity for up to 10,000 people.
The Tropicana was once an art deco lido that opened in 1937, but it closed in 2000 and then sat as a hollowed-out shell for 15 years. Now the global entertainment company behind about 20 UK music festivals, including Reading, Leeds, Isle of Wight and Download, wants to bring its festival model to the Somerset coast, while also operating the O2 Academy venues and the Ticketmaster brand.
North Somerset leader Mike Bell said the town needs a jolt after years of drift. “We have definitely been stuck in a little bit of a cycle of decline, and you see it in our high street, where businesses struggle,” he said on Wednesday while speaking from the Tropicana. He said the answer was “some catalytic investment that was going to increase numbers,” adding, “Build it and people will come. That, in turn, will help to support the economy and encourage growth.”
The case for the deal is tied to more than one building on the seafront. The proposed venue is being linked with upgrades to the nearly 100-year-old marine lake and renovations to the Grade II* listed Birnbeck Pier, part of a wider attempt to shift Weston-super-Mare from decline to renewal. Five areas within the town rank among the most deprived 5% in England, a sharp contrast with the image many people have of North Somerset.
Live Nation is not starting from scratch in resort towns. In Margate, its intervention helped transform a failing vintage theme park into a thriving music and cultural hub at Dreamland, a project local figures point to as a model for Weston-super-Mare. Eddie Kemsley said the company “developed a live music programme at Dreamland in Margate which really put it back on the map,” and said that over the last 10 years the area had seen more hotels and restaurants open and “a real night-time economy.”
Weston-super-Mare has seen what the Tropicana can do when attention turns its way. In 2015, Banksy transformed the derelict site into Dismaland, which reportedly gave the local economy a £20m boost. That fleeting burst of interest did not solve the town’s long-term problems, but it showed the site can draw crowds when it is used differently.
Rose Swann, 71, said the plan matches what people in the town have been waiting for. “We really need something like this in this town,” she said. The test now is whether a 25-year lease and a major operator can turn a one-off headline into a lasting economy, not just a busier summer.
The question is no longer whether the Tropicana can attract attention. It can. The real issue is whether Live Nation can turn that attention into year-round footfall, jobs and spending in a town that has waited decades for a revival that lasts.
