London venue responds to fears over outstanding bills and email silence

The owner of London’s 21Soho comedy venue has promised that he will not leave comedians out of pocket amid widespread complaints about unpaid bills.

Fears for the future of the outfit were amplified after the company that operates the site, 21 Soho Square Limited, went into liquidation last month.

But owner Nick Mills has told Chortle he will settle all his bills – and apologised to comedians and promoters left in the lurch. 

He also said the voluntary liquidation was part of a ‘restructuring’ that would not affect those owed money.

Mills said: ‘I care so much about this industry and genuinely everyone is getting paid. It's just taking a little bit longer. We have multiple payments going through every day.’

He said the delays had been caused by the restructuring, caused in part when he split from a business partner last year, but admitted he had not been responsive to those chasing money.

Mills admitted: ‘My communication has been pretty poor with everyone. Once I explain everything, they go "Oh, absolutely fine – I just didn't know".

‘I should have told people. I should have forewarned the performers. But  I want to make sure everyone is settled as quickly as possible. You hear stories of other venues and big promoters taking a year to pay and that's not what we're doing.

‘If we'd had these conversations with everyone in advance, we would have crushed that industry rumour mill. I generally apologise to the industry. It’s embarrassing for me as well, of course.’

The 200-capacity 21Soho got off opened in 2020 – receiving its licence just days before the first national lockdown 

21 Soho Square Limited was would up voluntarily on February 13 and liquidators appointed. The company had unsecured debts of more than £330,000 with few assets to cover them. Almost all the money is owed to the taxman  plus some catering and cleaning suppliers. No comedians or promoters are named on the creditors list.

Mills’ businesses also include the 100-capacity 2Northdown venue in Kings Cross and the TicketText box office platform, which is the parent company responsible for paying comedians.

Accounts for both are overdue at Companies House, but at the end of  2021 TicketText was £260,000 in the red and 2Northdown £57,000 in the black.

The issue of unpaid comedians was made public this week when John-Luke Roberts tweeted about his problems getting paid and bemoaning the fact his emails to the company went unanswered.

His intervention also drew out other comedians with their own stories of unpaid bills. Rosie Holt said: ‘I was chasing for 6 months … I won’t perform there again now.’

And promoters Giddy Aunt Comedy posted: ‘They owe us £300+ for an invoice sent in August.’

Roberts was paid after making his grievance public, and deleted the tweet.

One promoter told this website: ‘We produced shows at 21Soho last summer and it took threatening to go public and starting small claims court proceedings in order to get the ticket remittance out of them. He owed us just under £5,000.’

The promoter said he’d heard of charity gigs that went unpaid for more than two months and of one young comedian still owed £3,000 from performances in spring last year.

He said: ‘It's sad, they were a good venue. But it's malicious to continue to run shows then ignore people as soon as they send an invoice...  They try to blame it on a recent shareholder falling-out, but from the stories I've heard, these problems go back years.’

Unpaid bills have prompted fears the company is on the verge of collapse – as Jongleurs owners Momo Leisure  similarly withheld payments and failed to respond to those it owed money to before its failure in 2013.

But Mills insisted: ‘We’ve built something great here and the journey has only just begun, despite the immense challenges we faced opening a mere week before the global pandemic. 

‘We have a strong and growing team, with solid investment and great enthusiasm and backing from our investors - we’re all very excited about the future and our plans for growth.’

’21 Soho Square Limited was an operating company, a subsidiary, and it was the accountant’s advice to restructure, especially with my partner going.

‘For simplicity going forward, it made sense to bring everything under one banner. If you’ve gigged for one of our venues – it doesn’t matter which one – you’ll get paid by that company.’

The news comes in the week that Montreal's Just For Laughs, one of the world’s biggest comedy festivals, has been cancelled this year after hitting major financial difficulties.

Published: 8 Mar 2024