The beat goes
on for DJ Hayes John Hayes has run nightclubs in Scunthorpe since 1974. It all began on a night out in Tiffany's in Scunthorpe when he found himself dismayed by the disc jockey. "He didn't seem to care about his customers more about chasing birds around the stage." He borrowed some decks, bought a record collection and became a mobile disc jockey. Eventually, he decided to rent a 300-capacity room at the Cocked Hat pub, which had a 2am licence, and so began Fagin's nightclub on a Thursday night. "We sold tickets at 50p each. We got 100 people on the first Thursday night and it wasn't long before we hit capacity. It was open in the 1970s and 1980s and everybody still talks about it." Realising that the Cocked Hat was vulnerable he had no formal contract to use the room he built Garbo's in 1981. There was a period of expansion in the 1980s when he opened a Fagin's in Cleethorpes and another club in Selby. But running multiple sites had its downside. "I couldn't be in four places at once," he says. The opening of Club 2000 in 1999 was the culmination of many years of planning, and negotiation with the local authority, which was able to get £1m in funding from Europe to redevelop the whole area. One thing has remained unchanged over the years Hayes' love of music. Has it got better or worse? "I do enjoy modern music the songs that have words and some sort of tune. But the industry lost a lot when DJs moved away from playing what fills the dance floor.
