Hull’s legendary underground music venue, The Adelphi Club, is celebrating after it scooped an award for its creative online campaign to promote its 30th anniversary in the same week that the BBC reported 40% of live music venues have closed in the last 10 years.

Adelphi, alongside Sowdens, won the award for Best Digital Marketing Campaign at Hull’s inaugural Digital Awards for its creative and media rich campaign on social media, with no budget in sight.

The award came in the same week that Music Venue Day highlighted how “grassroots” venues are increasingly under threat. Sowdens Director, Polly Sowden commented: “For The Adelphi to be recognised in this way is a true example of how a group of dedicated and passionate people can keep the spirit of small venues alive.

“With Hull City of Culture 2017 on the horizon it’s imperative that we do whatever we can to nurture and develop the corners of our cultural community and help them to flourish beyond the next two years. Only by embracing digital platforms and reaching our audience directly will we have an impact.”

The #Adelphi30 campaign promoted seven nights, seven events and resulted in seven sell-out gigs, with the Kaiser Chiefs headlining Friday and the ultimate closing gig with Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott. Musical history was also made when three of the Housemartins reformed for one night only.

Collaborating with local filmmakers and photographers to create engaging content, setting up an Adelphi YouTube channel and website and conversing live with the masses helped to maximise the Club’s online presence. Social media channels generated 71,046 Facebook views with a killer post attracting over 1,000 likes, 35,000 views on www.theadelphi.com and 300,000 reach on Twitter alone during the event period.

The success of the #Adelphi30 campaign provided the club with enough funds to have the flat roof fully re-covered with a new ‘state of the art’ GRP surface guaranteed for 30 years (another 30 years!).