Final Death of the Savoy

The Savoy Building has been a key part of the Southsea seafront for over 80 years. Built in 1929 with it’s location opposite South Parade Pier The Savoy started out as a popular ballroom (and aquarium!) and through the years became a key live music venue in the 60s, including playing host to The Beatles on 7th April 1963. In more recent times the building became split up in to separate clubs and venues that went under many names through the 90s and 00s before closing and slowly becoming derelict. The left half of the building that once was home to the infamous 5th Avenue was demolished a couple of years ago and the remaining part of the building was sadly destroyed by fire yesterday.

The building was for many years the hub of Southsea when it came to people going out in the evening and will for many hold some fond memories (for me it was the hip hop night downstairs in 5th and the weekly rock night downstairs next door). If you have any memories of the place, be it queueing up for a late night burger at the corner shop, waiting for ages for a taxi, a particularly rawkus night out…anything, please add them as a comment, we would love to hear them. Also if you have any photos or video of the building from before, during or after the fire please send them over: contact@strong-island.co.uk.

The following photos were sent to us by Strong Islanders:

Photos by Pete Thorne

View from Portchester by Brad Goddard

Photo by Matt Maber

Photo by Sarah Dobinson

Photo by Charlie’s Dad

View more photos from yesterday’s post HERE.

Video by Pete Thorne

Video by iamthegtard

Waster Film

Waster is a long running and successful music night held upstairs in Envy every Friday night. This short film gives you an idea of what goes down.

Waster – Live Music

Waster are holding a night upstairs in Envy on March 5th where two bands will be playing live, Venice Ahoy and Astronomy Club. As well as the bands there will be the Southsea Mafia DJs plus awesome drink offers too, for more information check the Facebook event and Waster’s Facebook group.

PRIMARY – A Phoneography Exhibition by Strong Island – Call for entries

This coming new year we will be proud to announce our latest exhibition PRIMARY, a Phoneography exhibition by Strong Island and we are even happier to announce that it’s open to you, the readers.

With the continuing increase in impressive camera technology in mobile phones and the ability to alter, tweak, post process and upload the photos to social media networks and websites like Instagram, the popularity of Phoneography has never been greater.

The ‘of the moment’ ability to take a photo at almost any time and any place by most people has really driven the fact that the camera does not make the photographer. By which I mean, you don’t need an expensive camera to take outstanding photos.

Agreed, the quality of the physical image may not stand up to the big guns, but new learnings in composition, style and aesthetic by a new generation of camera users via online media has really driven this popularity, and encourage people to go beyond a ‘quick shot’.

PRIMARY invites you to get out and about around Portsea with your mobile phone camera and take photos of anything and everything based around the three primary colours red, yellow and blue. What you photograph is entirely up to you, but submissions will only be accepted if they stick to the theme.

The call for entires has now begun and the deadline is the 31st of January 2012 with the exhibition being held in March of 2012. Photos can be taken on any mobile phone model and we ask that a maximum of 3 photos per applicant are sent in to primary@strong-island.co.uk.

Please submit along with your photographs your name, photo title, phone model, location of photo on the island and any post process apps you used, if any, to achieve the final shot.

We look forward to seeing all the entries, and the final installation will be something special using every photo submitted in a slightly different fashion from your average photographic exhibition. CLICK HERE TO PRINT YOUR OWN POSTER

Poster by Tristan Savage & Photo by Paul Gonella

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage