The Southland Musicians Club have changed the name of their space to The Riff entertainment venue.
The building at Preston St has been home to the Southland Musicians Club since 1983.
Club president Trevor Daley said changing the name would not change the spirit of the live music venue.
‘‘We think it is a cool name that will take us into the future,’’ Mr Daley said.
“We’ve seen some terrific acts performing in our club over the years — nothing about that is going to change.
‘‘What we do want to change is to generate greater awareness of the facilities we have here and encourage more people to come to shows in our excellent live entertainment venue.”
The Southland Musicians Club entity remained the same, but the focus was now on how The Riff change would take the club to new heights as live music entertainment provider.
The club was proud of being able to provide Southland with a ‘‘fantastic purpose-built performance venue’’ which had hosted numerous local, national and international acts for more than four decades.
The Riff would become front and centre for all their public events and activities — bands would still be able to book the venue to host gigs.
New blood within the club’s committee hoped the venue name change, along with new street-facing signage and a stunning colourful mural painted inside the building, would help create the next generation of live music fans.
‘‘We pride ourselves on the fact that we’re a musicians club and not constricted to just one genre of music and we’ve got younger musos coming through with fresh talent.’’
The club will celebrate the renamed venue with an official opening and a free show open to the public on Saturday, March 14.
On the bill are The Commoners, Fortunate Sons, SU:N, The Cindy Syndicate, FOTA, Hoodaki, Filth Wizard and Duncan’s Darlings, to name a few.
