Sponsored by the SHL Ltd

Your evening will give you the opportunity to experience "the most famous club in the world", The Cavern Club, Liverpool.

You will enjoy drinks on arrival, a hot buffet and be entertained through the evening with a Beatles tribute band.

The Cavern Club opened its doors for the first time on January 16th 1957. Initially it was a jazz club which was gradually infiltrated by skiffle groups, followed by blues bands and eventually Beat groups, playing a brand of rock n' roll which became known as Merseybeat. Between 1961 and 1963 The Beatles made almost 300 appearances.

At a lunchtime session on November 9th 1961, Brian Epstein from Liverpool’s NEMS record store watched the Beatles perform. By this time the Beatles were arguably the most accomplished group on Merseyside. Epstein offered to become their manager and by May 1962 he had secured a recording contract for them.

The club closed in March 1973 and didn’t open its doors again until 1984. April 26^th 1984 was heralded as a new beginning with the opening of a new Cavern Club. Over 15,000 of the old Cavern bricks had been saved and treated. The old bricks were used to reconstruct the arches and the vaults to more or less the same dimensions as the original club. there are however a number of significant differences between the original Club and new floor plan.

The Club today occupies 75% of the original site. The reconstructed club is deeper than the original. Between 1957 and 1973 you would have descended 18 stairs. Today you will walk down 30 steps. The entrance to the Club today is 15 yards nearer to North John Street than the original club. Ironically the main fire escape onto Mathew Street from the new Club is the exact site of the original doorway. Why they didn’t put the reconstructed entrance in the same place remains a mystery - the present day entrance could have been the fire escape.

The original archways and vaults were at 90° to Mathew Street, not parallel as they are today. In fact the stage Paul McCartney performed on 14^th December 1999, is only feet away from the original Cavern Stage.