The Guildhall Walk venue is a club people visit from across the region and is thriving despite a bleak outlook at other venues across the city. Owner Alistair Ritchie revealed “how busy” his club is amid the potential closure of another popular city nightclub Pryzm. Rekom UK, which owns Pryzm in Stanhope Road, announced it had brought in administrators last week as part of a major restructure. The company is seeking financial assistance and said the late-night sector is suffering from extreme cost of living crisis pressures after an "extremely difficult" year.
Mr Ritchie has thanked the public for supporting his club and said: “I want to say thank you to people for supporting Astoria as a locally owned business. We're now seeing customers on a regular basis, not only from Portsmouth, but also from Chichester, Petersfield, the Isle of Wight, Winchester and Southampton.
“Together with Tokyo Joes, our sister venue, we employ around 100 staff from locals to students. Before buying Pure nightclub and turning it into the Astoria, I used to work for Liquid (now Pryzm), so I'm sad to see it declining as a business and the likelihood of it closing.
“We have compassion for the staff and would welcome them to positions at the Astoria should it close. We have already sold 1,000 tickets for this Saturday.”
See what a night is like at Astoria in our gallery below.
