Young people open music venue to boost night economy in St Neots

BBC News

24-06-2025

Young people have come together to create a new alternative music night in their home town. Grace Marsh, 24, is one of three young people working to create a space in St Neots, to boost the Cambridgeshire town's night-time economy.With Sam Squire, 25, and Adrian Kabzinski, 28, the trio came up with C58 to host alternative music events next to the Citizen Hub.Mr Squire explained their thinking, saying: "Why have I got go all the way to London to have a good night out... why can't we set something up in St Neots?"
Ms Marsh, managing director at the Community Hub, said they wanted to bring people together by hosting different events and giving local talent a platform to perform.She also hoped it would familiarise people with the hub so they felt comfortable visiting or asking for help if they needed it.The themes and sounds of the events will alternate to give people something new each time they visit.
'Thrive'
By doing so, they hope it will give people a purpose to come into town and explore its nightlife, she added."There's enough space, enough capacity and so many cool, small businesses that do amazing signature cocktails and amazing craft beer - we want those places to thrive," she said.Since launching the space, the team said several people had been in touch regarding opportunities for budding young DJs to perform.The space will open for its first event, described as bringing Amsterdam to St Neots, on 5 July.
The team hopes to eventually start a type of "fringe festival" across the town to encourage people to move between different venues.Mr Kabzinski, who has worked in hospitality since he was 16, said C58 aims to help local hospitality. "I sat there for ages trying to figure out how can we come up with ways to focus on the nightlife... what brings everyone together? It's the culture," he said."St Neots is actually a good place, we can make something out of it. This has given us a great blueprint to focus on the bigger things now. "You can have a venue but if you don't have a culture within that certain area, it's not going to happen... so that's the bit we're still working on."
Mr Squire is CEO of Inspire 2 Ignite, which aims to reduce the number of young people not in education, employment, or training.He hopes the venture will create opportunities like a hospitality programme for young people."There's so many people that, like Grace and Adrian, have loads of potential but they need the opportunity to showcase what that is. "We want to just amplify that to as many people in the community as possible."
Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.