Having forged a successful career in the engineering sector, – based entrepreneur, Vicki Wilkes has elected to take a drastic career change, opening the multi-functional Red By Night venue in October 2019 in the emerging Waterfront area of the Merry Hill Centre in Brierley Hill. Located in the heart of the Black Country, owner Vicki Wilkes, alongside her husband, Darren, Red By Night is equipped with some of the most state-of-the-art sound equipment in the UK, plus a completely unique interior and is already hosting top music and comedy nights with a raft of innovations planned for 2020 and beyond.
Red by Night, Merry Hill Centre in Brierley Hill
A profession that, in the UK, is still only made up of 12% women, Vicki pursued a degree in Materials Engineering at Swansea University. Vicki worked in engineering for the next decade, specialising in a breadth of roles before the unfortunate liquidation of ESH Testing Ltd, where Vicki, along with many others, was made redundant.
Choosing to not give up, Vicki and her husband Darren began their own engineering business, Phoenix Calibration, in the spare room of their house. Starting from nothing, the business grew to designing bespoke test machines for global customers in pharmaceutical, nuclear, aerospace, defence and automotive sectors. In 2010 the couple started a separate business, Merlin, in Loughborough, offering testing services for pharmaceutical customers. Phoenix reached an annual turnover of £2 million in 2014/15. At this stage, Vicki and Darren sold Phoenix and Merlin and chose to spend the Winter season 2018/19 in Austria in a motorhome. Whilst experiencing the snowboarding resorts, the couple fell in love with the atmosphere of Apres ski.
Music Performance Venue – Red by Night
Flooded with great bands and live music, they began searching for how they could bring the same atmosphere to their home city. Having been aware of empty units in the Waterfront area of Brierley Hill near to where they lived, the result of many years of neglect and lack of investment, they recognised the opportunity to help revitalise the spot, which Dudley Council had recently been turned into a Business Enterprise Zone. Once they had met the landlord and got the permission to turn the space into a music venue, Vicki and Darren began the steepest learning curves of their life, as they had no experience in this sector whatsoever. Faced with a completely empty shell, they looked not only to their own passion for music for inspiration but also to the local community and history of the site.
Taking the venue name from “black by day, red by night”, a phrase integral to the regions’ industrial history, Vicki comments:
“We have tried to keep the theme very local, we are proud to be part of the Black Country, and with our engineering backgrounds we could design and build a lot of the features ourselves rather than buy them off the shelf or get someone else to do it. We bought all the materials from other local businesses as far as possible.
“The bar front is from an original barge, the entire top of the bar and the bar pulls was designed and made by us, the cable tray brackets, stage, tables, toilets cubicles and sinks etc. We have two large cogs inside the venue that are from actual working presses, a lot of older engineers come past and see them and comment on how they used to work with the presses or maintain them. We have a series of photos of the area through the ages inside the venue on the doors, we believe it is vital to retain the heritage of an area that influenced the industrial landscape of the entire country.”
Set to be ‘the’ place for music events, comedy nights and a spot for student bands from the forthcoming Resonance University to rehearse and gig, the predicted success of the Red By Night venue is an testament to entrepreneurship and what can be achieved by the courage to venture into the unknown.
Venue for Music Events – Red by Night
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