The Independent is continuing with its Main Stage initiative to support grassroots music venues, this month with a spotlight feature on Voodoo in Belfast. Instantly recognisable for its black and crimson red exterior and matching decor inside, Voodoo has been run by Ciaran Smyth since its launch in 2011. Smyth originally worked in engineering and property development before becoming involved in another music venue.
“It was a steep learning curve,” he recalled. “I wasn’t in management, but I saw potential doing that elsewhere. This was at a time when live audiences had died away, a lot of stuff was closing.
.. so maybe it was mad to try working somewhere else, but the community I was in still loved live music.
” He described music in Belfast as “the great leveller, where people from all different communities could come together, and that to me really appealed. “Because our staff come from everywhere and are all into music, I was reasonably confident that I could make a success of it,” he added. “It wasn’t a good area but it had potential.
” Smyth said that the downstairs bar “comes alive” whenever a live show is taking place: “There’s a community of people who love music here. Everyone works very hard, and a lot of the staff are musicians themselves. “Two very important genres in Belfast are punk and metal, and while we try to vary our genres to keep our reach as wide as possible, that’s kind of where we came from.
” The area around Voodoo was �.