For close to eight years, grassroots arts space The Aftermath has offered a vital space to creatives of all walks of life — hosting regular comedy nights, theatre and spoken word evenings, as well as non-stop art exhibitions and a robust weekend live music programme.
Now the founders of this vital performance venue are sounding the alarm, with a month-long campaign evocatively themed, “Hong Kong We Need You.”
Throughout June, supporters and patrons are simply encouraged to step beneath the bright blue neon sign that marks out the bar’s easily missed entrance, descend the dark staircase from Wyndham Street, and show their support at a special programme of events spotlighting emerging independent musicians.
Local favourites including Mr Koo, Junk! and Brother Plainview are among the acts who are performing at these unofficial “rent parties” designed to help the venue claw in desperately needed funds to pay off long-overdue rent.
A pandemic hangover
The Aftermath’s existential crisis came to a head at the end of the financial year when it became time to renegotiate its lease, while the venue remained with months of unpaid arrears. When the landowners learned more about the venue’s mission they offered a “very reasonable” rent reduction and agreed a repayment plan that would allow the Aftermath to stay in business. “The landlady came to see that this was a passion project and that we were sincere people,” says co-founder Alicia Beale. “We would have had to leave the premises if we couldn’t come up with this new agreement — it was never sure that it would work out.”
Originally soft-launched in late 2018 by Beale and co-founder Kyle Haynes, The Aftermath was first plunged into debt amid the Covid-19 pandemic, when the venue was forced to close or host low-capacity socially distanced events for a period of years, and has struggled to stay viable ever since. “We’ve never had a chance to get even, we’ve always been in debt,” adds Beale. “We’ve done a lot of borrowing, I don’t have any savings left.”
The venue’s key city centre location comes at a price. Central’s two other regular live music haunts, Peel Fresco and Rula Live, did not survive the pandemic. While Beale and Haynes are doing everything they can to ensure The Aftermath does not follow suit, as it stands, covering the Central rent accounts for “more than half” of the venue’s monthly expenses. And the deadline for repayments is now looming. “We really need to make sure we meet the repayment schedule,” adds Beale. “We need to make good on what we agreed on.”
Rock for rent
And so, the idea of rent fundraisers was coined. June’s programme features a diverse range of musical acts, all happy to forfeit a fee to help keep the venue afloat. Beloved guitar pop band Mr Koo – responsible for immortal Hong Kong singalong “Big Wave Way” — top a 5 June bill that also features the folk and indie sounds of The Pineapple Jam, The Lockouts and Levelling Out.
On 20 June, the sombre and sincere sounds of a newly reunited emo quartet Brother Plainview make strange bedfellows with the electro-comedy genius of one-man musical stand-up Junk! The eclectic bill also features reliable indie-pop originals from Warrior Monk and “Hong Kong’s first and only B-52s tribute act”, the wittily named B-852s.
The month wraps with the final of The Aftermath Battle of the Bands 2026. For the past four years the venue has hosted an annual talent search, inviting new and established acts alike to battle it out over a series of heats voted on by industry judges. This year’s final will see Midnight Overdrive, Misty Blue Banana, The Gurling and The Proxies compete on June 27, plus a headline slot from last year’s winners, Idles-esque post-punk provocateurs Houseplants.
For original musicians, especially, The Aftermath has historically offered a stepping stone. “The Aftermath is important because it’s a space where amateurs can develop,” says Beale.
But it’s hardly just amateurs. Over the years nearly all Hong Kong’s key indie promoters have utilised the venue, with Clockenflap, Rice, Ying Dak, Bandmennofool, Milk Tea Without Milk, Zenegeist, Desperate Infant and Pigrat previously hosting international touring bands in the venue.
Beyond the music
But music is not even half the story at The Aftermath. The venue’s greatest asset is not peerless curation, but instead an open-door policy that allows anyone with an idea to host events with a modest bar split arrangement. “If someone has an idea for an event, whatever it is, then we’re always open to it,” says Beale.
This ethos has allowed the venue to host everything from Cantonese karaoke to Mandarin stand-up, live nude drawing to video game battles, as well as cabaret, DJs, quizzes, vinyl listening appreciation sessions, game shows, variety nights and original theatre productions. It has also offered a sanctuary to often marginalised communities, hosting LGBTQIA+ events and club nights aimed at the African diaspora.
Regular comedy nights have proved especially enduring, with hat nods going to Comedy HK’s Tamby Chan and Bitches in Stitches — the first all femme Comedy troupe in HK, hosted by Fran Ayala. Beale also shouts out to multilingual comedy host Kate Hu, and Bianca Lau, host of the Dating Game Show.
Since the venue sounded the SOS, they’ve been met with an enthusiastic, and at times nostalgic, response from friends and followers – but what they need right now is not kind words, but patronage. “It’s the classic case of everyone will ‘like’ something and no one will do anything,” adds Beale. “We’ve already had lots of shares and warm messages, but if people don’t actually come to the bar and buy drinks and spend money, then what is it all for?
“It’s been such a struggle for Kyle and me — financially, mentally, even physically — sometimes you need to see that it matters to people. People sharing [posts] is great, but also you need to see people show up.”
Find out more about events at The Aftermath.