#SaveFabric - Investigation upon crisis communication
Diane Delaveau
Communication management
Fabric is a London nightclub based in Islington, known all around Europe. Opened in
1999, it has seen it license revoked on the Wednesday 7th September 2016 by the Islington City Council. This closure is seen as controversial and since then, the club’s organisation is trying to revoke this decision. They succeeded to reopen the club, promoting their issue through the campaign #savefabric, that raised over 300,000 pounds to support financially the battle to re-open the club. It is important to understand the impressive success of this campaign and the consequences this can have on a large number of stakeholder.
Table of Content I.
General information
A. Profile of the organisation
B. Origin of #savefabric
C. Press coverage
II.
Campaign analysis
A. Messages and objectives
B. Stakeholders
C. Strategies
D. Eectiveness
III. Communication future of the campaign
IV. Appendices
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Diane Delaveau
I.
Communication management
General information
A. Profile of the organisation
Founded by Keith Reilly and Cameron Leslie in October 1999, Fabric is a London
nightclub of a capacity of 2,500 people. An unusual feature of the club is the vibrating floor in the main room, made of 400 bass transducers emitting bass frequencies, giving the clubbers a full musical and sensorial experience, through their feet. The club also owns five sound-systems and three bars. Fabric has a total area of 25,000 square feet. Fabric is one of the main nightlife venues in London, and it is showcasing electronic music DJs and artists through weekly events. The club is composed of three rooms with independent sound systems, and it stands in the renovated Metropolitan Cold Stores in Farringdon, London. The typical music genre on a Friday is drum&bass, dubstep and hip-hop; Saturdays are featuring house, techno and electro. Fabric club also owns a record label, called Fabric Records, which launched on a monthly basis a mix CD.
The nightclub has now been operating for 17 years, and it is seen worldwide as a
cultural institution and a trendsetter. It helps new talent within London to emerge as artists through their programming of the club. More than 6 million people from all around the globe came to the club. It is nowadays seen one of the main clubs in Europe and has an echo beyond the United Kingdom, showcasing a large range of electronic music. Its reputation comes from high-quality musical showcases and a large variety of new and eclectic talent.
Details :  77A Charterhouse Street
Tel: +44 (0) 207 336 8898
Clerkenwell
info@fabriclondon.com
London
www.fabriclondon.com  
EC1M 6HJ
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Diane Delaveau
Communication management
B. Origin of #savefabric
Two 18-year-old participants were found dead in June and august 2016, who were
found to have taken and purchased MDMA, a hard drug, within the premises of the nightclub. Drugs were not detected by the security this two specific nights, and Islington Council considerate that searching at the entrance was not made properly. They mainly blame what they call the ‘culture of drugs’ at Fabric’s nightclub. Therefore, the committee decided to revoke Fabric’s license.
In the statement, Islington council expressed it main motives for the club’s closure : « People entering the club were inadequately searched. » « The extent of the drug use was such that security and staff would have or should have been able to observe not only the use of drugs but also the effect of drug use on a large number of patrons and these groups in particular. »
This appears to be for Fabric a crisis, and in order to fight this public decision, they launched the campaign #savefabric, what we can see as their crisis communication strategy : they are handling this critical decision for their company by reacting to it with a campaign, to avoid closure for their nightclub. It is a protest to the Islington Council decision.
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Diane Delaveau
Communication management
C. Press coverage
The issue has been covered worldwide in local, regional and national newspapers,
but also on other media, particularly through social media, with the audience sharing the press coverage about the issue on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Before the campaign had been launched, media were already sharing the information about Fabric’s closure. The information was shared on it own due to the already strong existing reputation of the club within the nightlife community. They enjoy an already emblematic image within London’s nightlife and are a symbol of the city and across the world for nightlife’s spaces.
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Diane Delaveau
Communication management
II. Campaign analysis
A. Messages and objectives
The main objective of the campaign #savefabric is mainly to raise funding to fight
the decision of the Islington Council, to get back the control of the situation in an efficient manner. Fabric wants the club to be re-open to the public audience at first. On a larger scale, they see their campaign as a fight to preserve London nightlife. As express on their website, their campaign aimed to « support nightlife and #savefabric ». In practicalities, the campaign aims to achieve two main goals : to raise awareness among a large audience and show the authorities the importance and the popularity of the nightclub across the United Kingdom and the globe, but also to raise funding to engage a legal campaign. Indeed, with the club’s closure, Fabric is not longer having revenues and struggles to finance their legal battle.
In order to do so, Fabric followed some specific patterns to get their messages understood. Through their various platforms, they fully explained the issue they are confronted with and present the information clearly to their audience, as for example financial statement or the exact reasons for Islington City Council’s decision to close the nightclub. They reacted quickly and efficiently to the crisis with a clear and proper answer. They minimised the threat of unprofessionalism by always exposing the full details of the advanced of the campaign and predict potential problems for their campaign. They follow policies and find answers to the antecedent issues to make their cause appealing to their key stakeholders. In each of their statement, they remind the reader what their campaign stand for, what the funding will go to.
Therefore, although the campaign was initiated by Fabric nightclub, it goes further than that and they are plenty of independent actors that makes this campaign truly interesting and show how public engagement can be the leading point to a crisis communication.
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Diane Delaveau
Communication management
B. Stakeholders
In the #savefabric campaign, our key stakeholders are the Islington City Council and
the potential funders. Indeed, these are the that need constant attention and a clear and direct communication. The Islington City Council is the one to be convinced that the licensing revocation can be reviewed, thanks to the crisis’ popularity among the audience. On the other hand, the campaign needs funding to stay alive, and this is where there is a constant need for new potential funders, as they are the core of the financial and legal campaign.
Finally, the media are important as they will share the campaign to a larger
audience than only the one of social media : the campaign has been on TV, Radio, Press, etc. It is important therefore to keep good relations with them and a great brand image. This is the three stakeholders that we need a full support and engagement within the campaign.
Secondary stakeholders involved the London Mayor Sadiq Khan, which shows his support towards the campaign and therefore has a strong interest to keep the nightclub open for London’s nightlife, although it does not have a strong power of the Council decision. There is also the London DJs and event promoters, with high interest in the cause as this is their working environment and engaging with this cause is crucial and essential. Finally, the social media audience and clubbers from all around the world can be seen as secondary stakeholders : they are at the heart of the online sharing of the campaign and relay the word about the ongoing campaign.
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Diane Delaveau
Communication management
C. Strategies
Through my research online and through newspapers shows that the #savefabric
campaign is communicated mostly through social media, events and press release, although a multitude smaller means of communication are used to raise awareness and funding on the nightclub’s issues.
They used mainly their website to share explanations about the crisis and advanced about the campaign. Within this website, they created a specific space, where they shared the essential pieces of information and gathered everything related to their campaign. Transparency statements and essential news are showcased online, giving also a full transparent financial statement. They also set up a change.org web page to collect funding from the audience and share their protest among this website’s community. They also raised funding by putting in place a special 11 CDs mixtape with electronic music artist. Finally, among the weeks of the campaign, they launched several parties within others clubs and with diverse partners, to raise funding but also to keep their campaign alive and give their audience different ways to involve within the campaign. All the profits from the events are then donated to the #saveourculture fund. To another extent, the audience, other clubs and artists themselves created and engaged by organising independent actions to show support to the nightclub’s situation and to raise awareness about this issue. More than 10 independent special events were held at various venues across London to support #savefabric funding and engage publics to support London’s nightlife.
They created a link with the customer through the online petition and the fundraising
action. Indeed, Fabric kept connectivity with it audience with progress about the petition and the fundraising, being easily and clearly accessible to the news media and the general public.
With two choices of engagement possible for the audience, it let the choice to
them, depending on their interest in the issue. By seeking an actual action from the public, they are therefore creating a stronger link with potential consumers : there is an emotional link created through this online engagement. By letting the audience taking part in the
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Communication management
campaign, they give them the opportunity to be part of this community. Therefore, the petition and the fundraising action is in this communication campaign a truly great tool because it creates a stronger link between the audience engaged in the campaign and the organisation.
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Diane Delaveau
Communication management
D. Effectiveness
Their campaign has been shared massively over Twitter, Facebook, etc. and they
have the support and coverage of national and international news company. Supports come from people within the industry, but also politicians such as London mayor Sadiq Khan. The best way to understand the efficiency and success of this campaign on a present time but also a future one is to conduct a SWOT analysis as followed :
• Strengths : the message is straightforward and strong. It appeals to a large young audience that uses social media and can provide the online spreading the campaign needs. Fabric already benefits from a good reputation on a worldwide scale, and they can ask the support of fellows nightlife professionals : DJs, events promoters, other nightclubs, etc. These stakeholders share the same issue and can see this campaign as a representation of their professional sphere. These people are therefore also influential among a local, national or international audience and therefore can again enlarge the circle of attention the #savefabric campaign requires.
• Weaknesses : Due to the circumstances, the campaign had limited time to set up and had been rushed. They launched the campaign quickly after the revocation of the license by the Islington council. This engendered press coverage and social media sharing that can sometimes carry out the wrong message, due to the extremely rapid launch of the campaign. The nature of the campaign itself can also be seen as a weakness : it refused the decision of an institutional authorities, the police and the Islington council, which can lead to a depreciation and devaluation of the nightclub in further actions, basing their defence only on their popular approach towards their audience and their fellow professionals.
• Opportunities : The campaign gives a lot of opportunities, not only for Fabric but for the rest of their audience. They opened a public debate about London nightlife but it offers repercussion for others cities and countries to copy their campaign in a similar situation. It shows that the audience can have a voice in this kind of debate. Moreover, for the 10
Diane Delaveau
Communication management
nightclub itself, it is a great low-cost marketing tool : the campaign #savefabric is relayed around the globe, and probably new people will hear about, which bring potential new customers. As now seen as something that could have been closed, it gets appealing for the clubbers : it becomes something to go to, the one unavailability of it gives the full appeal to the club.
• Threat : Thanks to the success of the campaign, Fabric has been able to get it license back. However, this comes under strict restriction and this has to be fully respected. Because of the new regulation set up in the club, this can aect the club’s reputation and the appeal of the audience to come in such a restricted space. It can also engender a lack of trust towards the nightclub by the authorities, who will be highly vigilant regarding drugs policy within the premise of the club.
Therefore, this crisis communication can be seen as a success : Fabric achieved its
objectives of sharing the issue and get fundings with their campaign to reopen the club. They utilised successful operational tools to get their campaign spread and convince their audience and beyond, the media. They kept transparency statements and updates to make their campaign clear and understandable for their public. The campaign had large support from the stakeholders and can be seen as a great example of audience engagement.
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Diane Delaveau
Communication management
III. Communication future of the organisation
The campaign has seen most of it success thanks to the massive engagement of
the audience on social media. The campaign didn’t require any paid advertising and relied only on audience engagement and press coverage. The campaign took clear advantage of the already successful image of the nightclub. Less emphasises was given to the reasons for Fabric’s closure but rather on the closing itself. It would have been acknowledged to play also on communicating about solutions to problems that made the club closed. They could have given not more audience engagement, but a greater depth to the campaign and more supporting evidence to engage the dialogue with Islington City Council.
Nevertheless, this crisis communication will impact their future communication as a nightclub but also as the representative of #savefabric campaign. Instead of blaming the authorities for closure and not taking responsibility for the closure, Fabric decided to take this crisis as an opportunity to express a message for London’s nightlife and spread a message about the positive impact that the club have within London’s cultural environment. This campaign will impact their future communication because there is a great appeal for the nightclub to open the dialogue about the threatened London nightlife and being an ambassador of it : the #savefabric gave them a greater advertising among audience than expecting and by being implied in such cause it has a positive impact on Fabric image.
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Diane Delaveau
Communication management
IV. Appendices
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