Sarah Willingham: ‘The Piano Works has so much potential’

Nightcap, who’s portfolio includes 46 bars under brands like The Cocktail Club, Barrio Familia and the Adventure Bar Group, announced it had acquired live entertainment concept The Piano Works last week.

Stamp Entertainment, a subsidiary of Nightcap, has entered into an asset purchase agreement to acquire certain of the assets of TDC Concepts, which operates The Piano Works.

The operator’s CEO Sarah Willingham said: “We have already been working with The Piano Works over Christmas as a residency at our Barrio site and we all worked well together, so when the opportunity presented itself, we were happy to continue the relationship.

“It sits really nicely with our other brands. We are all about providing our consumers with a great experience and The Piano Works is the same.

“We are really excited to be working and developing with their teams. It has so much potential.”

'Unique' brand

Nightcap is paying a total consideration of £200,000 for the assets, following a pre-pack administration process by TDC Concepts and Nightcap has also raised £1m through a subscription of 16,666,666 of new ordinary shares in the company to provide working capital to Stamp.

It is intended the current directors of TDC Concepts will become minority shareholders in Stamp.

Launched in 2015, The Piano Works is an interactive live music entertainment concept, typically involving pianists, vocalists and other musicians performing an audience curated playlist, accompanied by a food, drinks and cocktail offering.

Making the decision to acquire the business public felt “great” for Willingham. “I am a huge fan of this brand and I love its uniqueness,” she added.

And what about plans for expansion? The CEO said: “We need to embed the brand first and work with the teams on the next steps.”

Looking ahead

Since November 2023, The Piano Works has enjoyed a successful residency within Nightcap’s Barrio Covent Garden venue. The residency resulted in a significant uplift in revenues compared to the board’s forecasts under the Barrio brand for the four-week festive period ended 31 December 2023.

Nightcap intends The Piano Works to become a permanent fixture at the Covent Garden site and for The Piano Works concept to be the rolled out along with the other successful brands in the Nightcap portfolio.

The Piano Works founder Alan Lorrimer said: “The past four years have been the toughest I have known in my forty years in hospitality. We survived Covid but when the sale of our Leicester Square venue fell through, it was the last financial straw.

“We transferred into Covent Garden thanks to a great collaboration with the Nightcap team. We had an excellent Christmas that proved we could work really well together.

“We now have the potential to expand The Piano Works and prove that customers across the country will love our immersive audience requested live music experience.”