Sadly, but perhaps inevitably due to the current crisis Ireland has lost one of its favourite venues The Kino in Cork. A statement posted by the venues proprietors The Good Room who also run Live at St. Luke’s announced the closure of the Washington Street venue in a statement today.

“Unfortunately we’ve made the difficult decision to close the Kino for good. We had come to a new agreement with the landlord recently to stay until the end of the summer. But due to the latest government extension of level 5 restrictions we feel that it will likely be June or July before the live performance sector is allowed to re-open. It wasn’t feasible to continue paying substantial rent for the next several months in the hopes of maybe opening for a few weeks. Only to vacate shortly after in order for the building to be sold.

It’s devastating to be leaving so much sooner that we had hoped but unfortunately the timing never worked for us in the Kino. We were only six months into what was a five year plan when Covid came along and we were forced to close last March.”

“In truth we had just found our groove and the venue was getting a great name nationally. We never got a chance to fully realise our vision for the Kino. Had Covid not come along we would be in a completely different situation.”

The closure of the venue is a devastating blow for the arts community in Cork but The Good Room hope to continue promoting events in other venues in the future.

“We hope to be back with Live At St. Luke’s concerts in the autumn and as soon as we can get back to live events we have some incredible stuff lined up. We’ll be hitting the ground running and know that we will only go from strength to strength once things open up again.”

Below is a selection of photos from events GoldenPlec covered in The Kino. All photographs by Cork’s own Shane J. Horan