Sugar in Adelaide goes up for sale

  • Published
    Wed, Apr 8, 2015, 10:02
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  • The South Australian club has been put on the market after a 13-year run.
  • Sugar in Adelaide goes up for sale image
  • Adelaide club Sugar has been put up for sale. For the past 13 years Sugar has been one of the South Australian capital's most important nightspots for house, techno and disco. Following the abrupt closure of likeminded venue Cuckoo Bar in November 2014, it's the city's last dedicated underground dance music club. The past 12 months alone have seen guests like Moodymann, Soul Clap, Seth Troxler, Jeff Mills and Nicky Siano play Sugar, while local jocks and Untzz Twelve Inch co-founders Babicka and HVCK used the venue as their home base for a number of years under their In The Deep End banner. Majority owner and operator Driller Armstrong announced this week "with mixed feelings" that he would be selling Sugar. As he told RA: "I have spent a lot of my time concerned with the business of Sugar and far less time than I am used to focusing on my art and other projects of my making." Armstrong says being diagnosed with cancer caused a change in his priorities. "Cancer changes everything. It really draws you to what is important. I want to put the focus back on me and I want to worry a lot less." He says Sugar has also had to contend with the growing challenges of maintaining an underground club in Adelaide, including lock-out laws, mounting fees and an inconsistent market, particularly outside summer months. While he points out that "if the right people buy the club there is no reason whatsoever that it cannot continue" operating as it does now, the possibility remains that a change of ownership could result in the loss of the city's most vital dance music pillar.
RA