Bournemouth club Halo closes after 11 years due to ‘challenging’ financial pressures

Halo has announced it’s closure after 11 years of operation due to financial challenges as a result of  changing student culture, external pressures of Brexit and the cost of living crisis.

The club has been forced to close after “several months of diligent effort” to renegotiate its lease terms.

It has been closed since their New Year’s event in January 2024, and will not be having a closing night event.

It announced its closure on social media yesterday, explaining how the past few years had been “exceptionally challenging”.

Halo first opened its doors in 2013 and recently had to let more than 50 members of staff due to financial pressures.

The closure comes as a result of rising operational costs such as the national minimum wage, increased business rates and the cost of living crisis, which the club explained has “hit the younger generation and students particularly hard”.

Club owner, Ty Temel, was devastated by the loss and wrote of the effect of Covid on the business on Instagram. Running the club since its creation in 2013, he explained how Halo had becoma a part of him: “It’s been my identity for as long as I can remember in this town.”

In a statement given to the Bournemouth Echo, he said: “Until 2020, everything was great. The night time economy was thriving and we actually did a huge refurbishment in 2020.

Halo reopened for just six weeks in 2020 before lockdown began. Although the club eventually reopened full time, experiencing a post-covid boom, Ty said they have struggled to maintain a profit margin since 2022.

Ty explained: “We closed for six weeks, spent just under half a million pounds and we re-opened on the payday weekend in January.”

Believing Covid obscured a ongoing problem which began in 2019, he added: “The first dip was Brexit because we lost a lot of our overseas staff. The hospitality sector in general took a massive hit and then Covid came.

“I think the biggest thing has a been cultural shift, I feel British culture around the nightclubbing scene is dying. Unfortunately, you have students that are pinched by a cost of living crisis and also a behavioural change in people drinking less alcohol.”

The closure of the club is a bookmark moment of Ty’s career, after first becoming involved with the club as a promoter when it was known as V, eventually taking over in 2013.

He said: “I started as a kid, not with any real knowledge of nightclub life or life in general.

“I think this is the start of a long blood bath in the hospitality industry. It’s Armageddon and this is the beginning of it.”

Ty wrote of being “proud” of Halo and it’s achievements over the 11 years, and thanked the team and supporters for making it all possible.

He wrote: “I’m proud of what we have created, of the team, past and present, that without none of this would be possible. I’m proud of our loyal supporters that came & partied every weekend for years.

“We won ‘Best Club’ for four consecutive years. We’ve brought some of the biggest artists & DJs to our little seaside town, we’ve given people joy, helped them socialise, find their life partners. It truly is the end of an era.”

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