The Brunel Rooms

The Brunel Rooms has a long history and its decor is still very much bases around its 70's foundation.  It is located in Swindon and  is still open today.   It has a central rotating bar and beside the large (1400 capacity) main room 2 smaller ones.  

In the early 90s it became a regular rave / House music venue hosting many one off events and there own weekly night called The Fruit Club.  More recently Obsessed and HTiD have played hear as well as Raindance, Uproar and others.

In 2007 the club was sold after 35 years in the same family to Luminar leisure.

History of the Brunel Rooms

Rave music first came to the Brunel Rooms in the early 1990s following on from early acid house/house music events at the venue in the 80's.   The Brunel Rooms along with the Hacienda in Manchester was at the fore front of bringing dance music to the UK.

The early rave events at the Brunel Rooms were entitled Odyssey and featured many of the UKs biggest DJ acts including, Grooverider, Carl Cox, Easygroove, Sasha and more. The headline act at the opening night in October 1991 was Sy.  The Brunel Rooms at the time along with the famous Eclipse in Coventry were the only clubs in the UK to hold all-night licenses.    With this mixture of late licenses, central location accessible to many and top DJs line ups the clubs reputation soon spread as its high filling the club week after week.   However as with the rest of the scene as the music split in 1993 it was time for a change,  the last Odyssey night in 1993 featured Joey Beltram.

In 1993 the Fruit Club was started.   This was founded by promoter Stephen Reid and took place every Friday.  It featured the best rave DJs and split into a room alternating between Hardcore and Drum n Bass with the other room dedicated to House music which was continuing to grow in popularity.  These events were from 9pm - 3am and every 3 months they would hold an all-nighter, before becoming more frequent.  As the split in the music scene continued the Happy Hardcore nights start to dominate, with line ups consisting along the lines of Dougal, Seduction, Vibes, Slipmatt and more.   MC Rude was the resident MC during the period.

In 1995 the new amphi was built adding a smaller room to the downstairs of the club which has remained fairly the same until 2007.    With the Fruit Clubs success other larger outside promoters  started to do nights at the venue from 1996, including Fusion, Club Kinetic and Bristol Exposure as well as magazines like Eternity.  Legends Dreamscape even held an event at the club on New Years day in 1998. 

As Hardcore lost its wider appeal The Brunel Rooms continued to support the scene with monthly Dreamscape events with Hardcore in the main room and Drum n bass in the smaller room.  These events stopped in 2000 but the Fruit Club continued through the 2000's with Old Skool & Hardcore.

Since then Uproar, Raver Baby, Raindance, Obsessed and many others have held nights at the venue.   Its future since being sold however is uncertain.....